


Until The Devil Turns To Dust

by skyline



Series: A Song You'll Regret [3]
Category: Big Time Rush
Genre: Angst, Daddy Issues, F/M, Homophobia, Love Triangles, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-14 06:04:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love does not exist for boys like Kendall Knight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo. This is told from Kendall AND Carlos's POVs. A quick note on the format: I hate alternating POV. As a general rule, I don’t write it. However, this was never supposed to be an epically long story. It was supposed to be clips of Kendall and Carlos’s feelings during the course of ASYR/AOTAOB set to music, ‘cause I’ve got a ficmix addiction. Then it got longer. And longer, and longer. Now I’ll be posting in parts. But just know- this isn’t exactly my format of choice for fic. 
> 
> Next topic: ugh, alright, here's the deal. This does not end well. It ends with a kiss, and I'm telling you that because some of you are going to be like OMGYAY and some of you are going to be like DON'T SETTLE DUDE, and all I have to say about it is that the latter group is right. This entire verse involves a lot of settling (see: ASYR), not because I advocate it, but because sometimes irl, it happens. It's not my part to judge (the practical part of me says NEVER DO IT and the romantic part of me says SECOND CHANCES), and sometimes irl it works out (yay second chances) and sometimes it doesn't (I told you not to do it). But when you have a verse like this, it's pretty much the only way it can end, with hope, because this much misery? Needs hope. Logan and James in ASYR/AOTAOB don't instantly have a happy ending, despite the kiss (spoiler: it takes James five years to get Logan to sleep with him again), and the same applies here. Relationships take work and effort, etc, etc, especially when you've already set a precedent where you don't trust each other. So, if at the end, you're in the NO group, well. Honestly, so am I. But unlike most of my verses/oneshots, this is not about love conquering all. It's about believing in the possibility that love might conquer all, even if you're really, really, really not sure. You've been warned.
> 
> Mega thanks to jblostfan16 for the beta and breila_rose for putting up with my nerves.

**1.**  
  
Loving someone involves a lot of waiting. And patience.  
  
“ _Patience_ , Kendall.” That’s what his mom says when Kendall is too overeager, peeking over the edge of the car window to catch a glimpse of his dad when he finally walks off the tarmac.  
  
They’re going to the zoo, no, the space museum, no, wait- the park. Kendall and his dad, the hero, are going to go to the park and play on the swings and stay out in the cold until the stars are twinkling overhead.  
  
Kendall clutches the straps of his seat belt, already unbuckled. He’s ready to jump out of the car at the first glimpse of camouflage. His mom laughs. “Patience, honey. _Patience_.”  
  
It’s freezing cold outside, snow on the ground in sheets that are half-ice. Kendall doesn’t care. He wants to run up to the chain link fence surrounding the airport and yell, “Daddy!”  
  
It’s been four months since he last saw his father.  
  
The plane door opens, and Kendall nearly falls off of the seat in excitement. He’s bouncing up and down, shaking the whole car, and his mom stares down at her stomach and tells Kendall’s baby brother (he demands a baby brother, because girls are weird, and sisters are lame), “This is what you have to look forward to.”  
  
“Mom,” Kendall says, curiosity creeping into his voice. “Who’s that lady holding dad’s hand?”  
  
Mrs. Knight’s gaze snaps up to the plane, where they can see the distant figures of Kendall’s dad, the hero, hand in hand with a woman dressed in white. Kendall doesn’t know what it means for a person’s face to crumple, but that’s exactly what his mom’s does.  
  
“Can we go say hi now?” Kendall asks, confused.  
  
“No. Um. I think-” Mrs. Knight fumbles with the keys. “How about I take you to the park?”  
  
“But dad-“  
  
“Kendall,” Mrs. Knight says sharply.  
  
She’s not crying. Kendall hasn’t ever once seen his mom cry. But she is definitely upset. Kendall can see that, and he isn’t sure what to do about it. He feels weirdly helpless.  
  
As his mom pulls away from the tiny little airfield, Kendall stares back at the woman’s shiny blonde hair and wonders if she would be standing there if they’d braved the snow.  
  
If they hadn’t _waited_.  
  
That night, his parents fight. There is screaming, and there is anger, and Kendall hides beneath a fort made of blankets and sings to himself.  
  
In the morning, his dad isn’t there. Kendall looks everywhere, in the closets, under the couch, and even in the woods behind their house. “Mom-“  
  
He slams to a stop in the living room. His mom is curled up in front of the window, a romance novel cupped in her palms, and okay, his mom never cries. But the skin of her cheeks is shiny-wet, and she’s reading her book upside down.  
  
Kendall takes a step back, and then another. Before his mom catches sight of him, he’s off running, straight into his parents’ room, where his dad’s suitcase lies open on the bed. Kendall doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he’s not stupid. Something is wrong, and he thinks it probably has to do with the lady, the one who was holding hands with his dad the way his mom is supposed to.  
  
When he finds the letters, more sappy and romantic than anything his mom’s romance novels could ever come up with, Kendall doesn’t think anything of it. His mom is always writing his dad letters.  
  
Except these aren’t from his mom.  
  
Kendall doesn’t know what it means, exactly, but he knows it’s bad. He runs his fingers along his father’s uniform pins, the cloth soft, the stripes an indecipherable code. Some of them have tiny stars stuck into the fabric like tacks. They all mean different things, like a secret language that only heroes know. Because that’s what everyone says Kendall’s dad is, of course. A hero with a dimpled smile and too much charm.  
  
That’s probably why the lady in white is trying to steal him away.  
  
It takes a year and a half for things to turn sour completely. A year and a half where Kendall feels like he only exists in the spaces between his parents’ fights. He hides beneath the bed, beneath sheets patterned with pirate ships and stars, dinosaurs and hockey pucks. He only ever hears what is said during arguments in bits and pieces.  
  
He hears his mom ask, _did you sleep with her_?  
  
He hears his dad ask, all sardonic and mean, _why does it even matter_?  
  
And Kendall is inclined to agree, why does it matter? He doesn’t get why it’s such a big deal. He sleeps with his new bestest best friend Carlos all the time. Of course, Kendall thinks Carlos is the best person in the entire universe. They’ve been best friends for like, a whole month, and Kendall’s never really had a best friend before, but he likes it a lot.  
  
Kendall wants to tell Carlos about the blonde lady and his dad, about how angry and confused he feels. But he also doesn’t want to say anything at all, because Carlos is always happy and smiling and if Kendall tells him, he might cry.  
  
Kendall really, really hates it when Carlos cries. It makes _him_ want to cry, and maybe if Kendall ignores the problem it might go away on its own, anyway. Maybe his imagination is just being overactive. His mom says that happens to him all the time. Like when he decided the mailman was actually a dragon and he tried to slay him with his ninja turtles lunch box.  
  
But Kendall doesn’t think so. He gets into fights, sometimes, because he’s just so angry that he can’t hold it in anymore. His skin feels too tight, too small, and all the things in his chest are too damn big. Sometimes, Kendall gets so mad he wants to scream.  
  
He wants to talk to his mom about it, but the one time he tries he finds her staring out the window, nails digging into a ceramic coffee mug, clean, but with shorn edges indicative of how rough the past few months have been. Kendall looks down, focusing on a bright spot of dirt on the toe of his sneaker. He doesn’t actually know how to say that he feels like a skeleton-boy, all bones and no substance, just empty space. His mom and dad are supposed to be in love, true love, the truest true kind, like in the stories his mom has been telling him since he was really, really small. And Kendall has always, always believed in them, because he likes the idea of love. It is a scapula he wears beneath his clothes, close to his heart; something he believes in more than any religion. Now, slowly but surely, that idea is being prized from his tiny hands. Obviously he’s spitting mad about it.  
  
Everyone tells him that he needs to calm down, that his dad adores him. That he’s a _hero_. Even his mom says it, when she can, when she’s not in the middle of a yelling match, anger dancing like flames in her eyes.  
  
Kendall remembers when Mrs. Magikowski’s daughter got divorced, last year. She left her husband for another guy, which Kendall isn’t supposed to know, but he’s a really good eavesdropper. People called _her_ a homewrecker and worse, and even Mrs. Magikowski was all mad and wouldn’t let her move back into her house. Kendall doesn’t get why it’s different for her, but he tries not to think about that too much.  
  
He does think he’s going to tell his dad that he’s on his side, and that his mom’s just being dumb. He listens to them argue downstairs like a raging storm for hours on end, and yeah. He’s totally going to tell his dad that.  
  
Only, when he wakes up in a tangle of dinosaur sheets the next morning, his dad has gone; flitted off to Kabul for six months. Kendall’s mom is crying, and Kendall thinks that maybe it is a big deal after all.  
  
Maybe this is one of those adult things he just doesn’t get, like the difference between Mrs. Magikowski’s daughter and his dad. She didn’t want her family, and she got shamed for it, but now, when Kendall’s dad doesn’t want his family, all he has to do is fly away on silver wings, and no one will call him out on it.  
  
When a person deserts the military, they call it dishonorable.  
  
When a person deserts their wife and kids for the military, for some bitch with a shiny gold halo around her officer’s cap, they call him _a hero_.

  
\---

  
**2.**  
  
Carlos’s dad listens to country music.  
  
Like, all the time. It’s a little ridiculous. These men with their twangy accents go on and on and on and on about heartbreak, but Carlos’s dad isn’t heartbroken.  
  
Unless Carlos’s mom is mean to him and like, withholds pie.  
  
When Carlos’s big brother picks up the habit, Carlos has to ask. “Why?”  
  
“Why what?”  
  
“Why this song?”  
  
“Sometimes, baby brother, you meet a woman, and you just know she looks like heartbreak. But you go for her anyway.”  
  
Carlos makes a face. “Why, though?”  
  
“You can’t do anything else.”  
  
Carlos doesn’t get what he means.  
  
One day, he’s making quesadillas with his mom. He’s in charge of grating the cheese, but he keeps getting too into it, shimmying his hips and slamming his hand down with the cheddar so that he nicks his finger against the metal.  
  
His mom is in the midst of applying the third Band-Aid on his knuckle when Carlos asks, “What’s love like?”  
  
Mrs. Garcia blinks, her lips curving into a grin. “Why, mijo? Is there someone you looove?” She presses her hands to her face dramatically. “That pretty girl two houses down, maybe?”  
  
“No!” Carlos recoils. “Girls are yucky.”  
  
“That’s what you say now, sweetie.” Mrs. Garcia cocks a knowing eyebrow. “Wait until you’re a teenager.”  
  
She launches into a story about Carlos’s big brother, and his first kiss; a story which Carlos’s big brother tells very, very differently.  
  
Still. Unless Carlos develops a brain-eating fungus, he doesn’t think he’ll ever like girls, but his mom looks so pleased that he chooses not to say so. Instead, Carlos blurts out, “What if I want to like a boy?”  
  
“A boy?” His mom repeats slowly, the light in her eyes dimming. Carlos doesn’t know what to make of that. “Like Kendall?”  
  
“Exactly like Kendall!” Carlos exclaims, excited that his mom maybe gets it. Kendall is the best thing since ever, since quesadillas and corn dogs and slip ‘n slides.  
  
“Kendall is…an angry little boy,” she says carefully. Carlos shrugs. Kendall has never been angry with him, except maybe that time that Carlos accidentally took his red power ranger home, and even then. He got over it pretty quick. “You just be careful, mijo.” His mom strokes a hand over his hair, pets him until he feels sleepy with it. “Don’t let Kendall break your heart.”  
  
Carlos doesn’t know what it means to have a broken heart, but he remembers what his brother said. “Like papi’s country songs?”  
  
“Just like that.” Mrs. Garcia laughs. “Clever boy.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Carlos replies seriously, because Kendall is nothing at all like a country song.  
  
Kendall would never, ever hurt him.

  
\---

  
**3.**  
  
School starts, and Kendall and Carlos are in the third grade now. They make new friends, like Logan and James, who are almost as cool as Carlos.  
  
Especially James.  
  
The first time Kendall really talks to him is during school hockey tryouts. They slam into each other at roughly forty miles an hour in this teeth-jarring, bone crushing catastrophe of a crash as they both race to sweep the puck into the net. Most of the other kids Kendall knows on the team still cry when they get hit that hard, but Kendall lives for it, for the dizzying moment of impact when all he can see are stars exploding across his vision. And James, sprawled across the ice, obviously lives for it too. He’s laughing loud, hard, and _spectacularly_.  
  
Better yet, James is the first person who understands, implicitly, who gets that Kendall can simultaneously hate and admire his dad. Because Kendall does admire him still, even though it’s not fair how his dad hasn’t come home from leave in so long that Katie probably doesn’t even remember what his face looks like. It’s been long enough that Kendall is starting to think that maybe his dad really is avoiding coming home.  
  
It pisses him off, makes him want nothing to do with the man, and yet he’s still so stupidly proud. James gets that. He doesn’t ever tell Kendall that he’s messed up in the head, and if he’s judging him, he doesn’t ever say so out loud.  
  
Still. James isn’t Carlos, who is all the best parts of summertime; splashing through pools and street hockey, sunlight and the taste of freshly peeled oranges. He is also snowball fights and marshmallows and watching snow spiral down in front of a crackling fire. He is apple cider and blazing leaves, but also flowers and endless blue skies. He is every season, because he is the very first real friend that Kendall has ever had. Kendall doesn’t entirely get what love is, not that story-tale truest of true loves his mom is always on about, but he knows he loves Carlos, and he knows Carlos loves him.  
  
Carlos would never make him hurt like his dad is making his mom hurt.  
  
At the same time, Kendall recognizes that it’s not the same thing. Probably. He can’t grow up and marry Carlos. He isn’t stupid; he understands that much.  
  
He also understands that things are getting worse at home.  
  
“Don’t touch your plate, honey,” his mom says, her voice stiff. Katie is banging a plastic spoon against her high chair tray, the sound a hollow echo in the kitchen.  
  
“I’m hungry,” Kendall whines.  
  
“We have to wait for your father.”  
  
Kendall scowls. He uses his fork to shift green peas around, a little act of defiance that has his mom’s eyes going all narrow at the corners. He doesn’t care. “Dad’s not coming.”  
  
It’s on the calendar that he’s supposed to be flying in today.  
  
It’s been on the calendar before. Kendall’s dad is consistently a no-show.  
  
“Of course he’s coming.”  
  
“He’s with that lady, isn’t he?”  
  
Mrs. Knight’s eyes flare with anger. Katie coos. The anger dies to a smolder. Her face softens. “Kendall, he’s at a debriefing. He’ll come home.”  
  
His mom might be able to control her temper, but Kendall can’t.  
  
“Why do you even want him to?” He yells. He’s not hungry anymore, he feels full, and his stomach aches in this raw way. He thinks about his mom curled up on the couch, face buried in one of her stupid, sappy books like books have anything at all to do with real life.  
  
“Because he’s your _father_ ,” Mrs. Knight explains. Her tone is calm, but she’s looking at Kendall like he’s a time bomb, and she’s scared he’s close to exploding. There’s this small part of him, this cold, calculating corner of his mind that likes it; he likes feeling so powerful that his mom, super-woman, is afraid.  
  
The larger part of him recoils, ashamed of how loud, how brash, how dumb he is. He doesn’t want to scare his mom. She’s got enough to deal with.  
  
But he’s too proud to apologize.  
  
Kendall’s pressing his fork against the plate so hard that it skids, scraping metal against ceramic, a screech in the air. It breaks the spell of silence. Quietly, levelly, Kendall says, “You can wait for dad. I’m hungry. I’m eating.”  
  
He scoops up a mouthful of peas and crams them in his mouth. In that moment, Kendall decides he’s not ever going to wait for anything again.

  
\---

  
**4.**  
  
“You spend too much time with that faggy friend of yours.”  
  
Carlos glances up, frowns. He doesn’t know what _fag_ means, but he doesn’t want to ask his older brother, who is so very smart and cool. Instead he asks, “Which one?” and ignores the way Jesse smiles, like Carlos just confirmed that _all_ of his friends are fags.  
  
“Kendork.”  
  
“He’s not a dork,” is Carlos’s immediate response. “He’s cool.”  
  
“He’s sweet on you.” When Carlos stares at him, uncomprehending, Jesse clarifies with a mean edge, “He looooves you.”  
  
“Oh.” Carlos shrugs. “I love him too.”  
  
“You don’t love boys, dummy,” his brother taps him on the head with his knuckles. It makes Carlos’s thoughts go all crooked and twisty, blurred for a second. “That’s disgusting.”  
  
“Is not.”  
  
“Is too.”  
  
“Is not!” Carlos insists, feeling heat rise in his cheeks. He’s upset, but he can’t figure out why.  
  
“Whatever,” Jesse decides. “Just don’t let the little fag try to kiss you.”  
  
Carlos blinks, and frowns, and blinks again. He doesn’t get why Kendall would try to kiss him, because that’s what old people do, but he also doesn’t get why that would be a bad thing.  
  
Later that same day, he meets Kendall at the park, and for a while they just kick around, climbing the jungle gym and talking about school and hockey. They plot a little, because Carlos always has the best ideas, but he has no idea how to implement them, and that’s where Kendall comes in. Sometimes he doesn’t want to save the day; Carlos is actually a little bit reckless, a little bit insane, but Kendall mostly seems to like that. He usually goes along with everything that Carlos suggests.  
  
Today it’s all going great. They scream and holler at the nearby lake like wild men and run free and crazy until, just like Jesse predicted, Kendall leans across the swings and presses their lips together. It’s soft and quick, and really, really nice. Carlos asks, “Why did you do that?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Kendall offers him a smile. He looks worried, like he’s done the wrong thing, but he says, “I was having a bad day and you made me feel better, so it was just…thank you, I guess.”  
  
“Oh.” Carlos pauses. “You shouldn’t have, though.”  
  
Kendall looks bewildered, but he’s still smiling. “What? Why?”  
  
“Seriously,” Carlos tells him, “You’re not supposed to kiss other boys. It’s gross.”  
  
At least, that’s what his brother said. Carlos is a little confused, because kissing Kendall hadn’t been anything like gross. Just kind of wet and gentle and sweet.  
  
“Oh.” Kendall’s smile dims. “Sorry?”  
  
Carlos isn’t sure what to say, so he shrugs and asks if Kendall wants to go play video games now.

  
\---

  
**5.**  
  
There’s this thing about being the son of a (mostly) single parent. It’s bedtime curfews that aren’t really enforced and never having hot breakfast in the morning. It’s an extra two hours after school lets out spent occupying himself and embracing the disdain of his friends’ parents, who think he’s too independent. Like knowing how to take care of himself turns him into poison.  
  
It’s loving his mom and hating his dad and then getting confused when his mom tells him to love his dad. It’s loving his dad and then getting more confused when his mom puts his dad down right in front of him.  
  
And it’s not that Kendall ever thinks his dad doesn’t love him. He knows that in his own way, his dad does. Kendall refuses to care about the hockey games he misses or the parent teacher conferences he doesn’t show for.  
  
He cares about the birthdays that go without out a call, the forgotten Christmases and every single tear Katie sheds when she thinks he’s not looking, already too tough at four. Living without a dad is such a common cliché, but it doesn’t make the pain of it hurt any less. Kendall wishes his parents would make it official already, and just not be together anymore. He’s seen HBO specials with Katie that are both less entertaining and less traumatic than the sight of his mom and dad, bickering.  
  
At the same time, he doesn’t want everyone to look at him like he’s different. Like his dad doesn’t love him enough to stay. He doesn’t, but that’s not the point. The point is that people will _know,_ and that’s embarrassing, and Kendall hates, hates, hates being embarrassed.  
  
One day he stands at the edge of the lake, Carlos by his side, and he screams, at the top of his lungs. _Finally_. He screams and he screams and he screams until there’s no air left in his chest and his voice is raw. Then he screams some more, maybe because he can, and because it makes him feel less helpless.  
  
Even though Carlos has no idea what’s going on, Kendall feels his hand slip into his. Carlos starts screaming too, yelling and shouting and hollering as loud as he can, and his voice overlays the places where Kendall’s has already started to break from the abuse. They are a force of nature, they are strong; they are together. Kendall has Carlos, and he is not alone.  
  
But actually, he is. Because less than an hour later, Kendall _kisses_ Carlos. He’s not sure why he does it; maybe because Carlos is wonderful, is summer and winter, is friendship and warmth, and the closest thing Kendall has ever known to love outside of his own shattered family.  
  
Only Carlos does not- will not-  
  
It’s _bad_ , okay?  
  
After that day, things change. Kendall doesn’t want them to, but they do, all the same. He knows Carlos doesn’t hate him, simply because Carlos sticks around. But Kendall also knows that something between them shifts. The easy familiarity Kendall felt when he would jump onto Carlos’s bed while they studied or when he would curl up next to him while they played video games or when he would fall asleep on his shoulder while they watched movies has vanished. They’re still friends, _best friends_ , but every time Kendall meets Carlos’s eyes, he feels guilty.  
  
He just thought…  
  
Kendall isn’t sure what he thought. He kissed Carlos simply because he _wasn’t_ thinking, because of corn dog dinners and lake races and igloo forts. Because he wanted to know what a kiss felt like, if it is a thing worth breaking up a family for, and Carlos is the only person he’s ever felt comfortable enough around to experiment with. And also because he felt safe and happy and for that one moment on the lake- silver blue and beautiful- intrinsically _loved_. It seemed like the thing to do.  
  
Kendall also hates being wrong.  
  
He wants to tell Carlos about what’s going on with his family. There’s not very many things the two of them don’t share. But now Kendall has this memory, framed like a picture in his mind.  
  
Carlos thought kissing him was gross.  
  
Carlos thinks boys shouldn’t be with other boys.  
  
What else, exactly, does Carlos think?  
  
Kendall doubts that Carlos would have anything hugely judgmental to say, but he won’t be able to stand it if Carlos starts thinking he’s disgusting.  
  
It’s weird, but the older Kendall gets, the fewer things he can stand.  
  
He starts putting some distance between himself and Carlos. Not a lot, but enough that he doesn’t feel suffocated by the weight of what his best friend may or may not be thinking about that kiss, about Kendall…He just needs space.  
  
Only, space is kind of boring. Kendall spends a lot of time kicking around the empty basketball court down the street from his house, thinking about things he’d rather forget. He’s doing that on a Wednesday afternoon, waiting for his mom to get home from work, when James stumbles across him. Kendall tries to look happy, tries to be upbeat, but apparently, he’s not super great at it.  
  
“What’s wrong?” James’s concern is immediate. In the fading afternoon light, his eyes sparkle like labradorite.  
  
“Nothing,” Kendall says, shifting from foot to foot. He tries to force a smile, but that doesn’t work at all.  
  
“It’s not nothing. Why are you lying?”  
  
He sighs. “I’m just having a really bad day, dude. Let it go.”  
  
“Oh,” James says, eyes wide.  
  
Then he kisses Kendall on the cheek, like it’s some kind of fix-all, a panacea that doesn’t just work on skinned knees and hockey injuries, but also on hearts.  
  
And maybe it does. Because in that moment Kendall thinks, _it’s okay_. Carlos just wasn’t the right person. When he’s in love, really, truly in love, Kendall will know.

  
\---

  
**6.**  
  
Carlos isn’t sure when he starts having to compete with James for Kendall’s attention and it grates, because James is not the kind of person who ever loses.  
  
Anything.  
  
But Carlos has his brothers and sisters, and he knows the rules of survival. If he can’t beat James, he’ll adapt to his presence. He’ll become his best fucking friend, closer than they’ve ever been before. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do with enemies. And James most certainly is an enemy. He’s constantly talking to Kendall, head bent close, and it’s obvious that they’re being all _serious_ and stuff.  
  
Carlos thinks that maybe they’re even talking about Kendall’s dad.  
  
He knows about that. Kind of. He doesn’t get why Kendall never tells him anything about it. Carlos tries to make it obvious that he’s here to listen, but Kendall never turns around and pours out his woes. It’s only James who ever gets to hear.  
  
And Carlos hates it, because he’s pretty sure James isn’t even listening.

  
\---

  
**7.**  
  
In a way, it is almost inevitable that Kendall turns to James. High school changes a lot of things all around, the first and foremost being that Kendall and James end up spending a lot more time together. Carlos has to help out with his brood of siblings after school, and Logan’s been spending a lot of time with his grandmother at some retirement community outside of town.  
  
Because apparently he thinks chess with old people is cool or something.  
  
Meanwhile, James is involved in the drama club, and Kendall’s got his own extracurriculars that end up keeping him until well past the time the buses have gone. They’ve been friends for close to seven years, scheming and pranking and generally making nuisances of themselves to their entire town, and sure, all the while Kendall has known that James is awesomesauce, but it’s kind of the first time he’s had James all to himself.  
  
He likes it.  
  
They start up a tradition of walking home together, trudging through a haze of autumn leaves that turns too quickly to slushy snow and dreary gray skies. But Kendall can ignore the way his toes go so cold that he can’t feel them anymore, the redness in his nose and the sluggish tone of his limbs when he’s got James walking next to him, chattering endlessly about this teacher or that girl or how they’re going to own that one team at the next game. There is something about the tilt of his smile and the complete and utter confidence in his tone that always makes Kendall feel solid, like he’s part of the world.  
  
Maybe even like he could own the world, if he chose to.  
  
It’s a kind of contented wholeness that Kendall hasn’t felt in a long time, supplemented by nights where James will while away hours at Kendall’s house, watching reality TV or playing video games or jamming out to songs on the radio. He teaches Kendall how to play guitar, his fingers hypnotic, the music more so; Kendall can feel it even after it’s gone, lullabies that lurk in his bones.  
  
In turn, Kendall teaches James whatever he can, gives whatever he can, tries to be everything that James will want. He can’t take rejection, not again. He is fragile in ways he doesn’t care to admit. He is Atlas, the world balanced on his shoulders, and sometimes he feels too close to breaking.  
  
And Kendall thinks that maybe James could change that.  
  
On a Friday morning there’s this report on the news about an IED going off near where Kendall’s dad is stationed, about nine dead marines, with bonus helicopter footage that they keep replaying over and over and over again, like some kind of sick hypnotist’s trick. For all his faults, Kendall’s dad always lets them know that he’s okay if there’s been any kind of action near where he’s stationed, and Kendall waits for the phone call, for the email, or the text from one of his dad’s buddies.  
  
It never comes. He tries his best to hold it together, to keep fear at bay, but less than ten hours later he’s dialing the first number that comes to mind, the only one his fingers can remember, voice breaking when he chokes out James’s name.  
  
James is over at his house less than half an hour later, crushing Kendall in a bear hug that feels like it rearranges his entire skeleton. He gets Kendall out of his head, takes him out into the snow-covered world and slaps powder in his face, rubbing it in until the ice is sticking to Kendall’s eyelashes, blocking his mouth and nose and they’re both laughing, laughing, laughing while they wrestle with it, while Kendall hooks a foot behind James’s calf and pulls them both ass flat into the powder. James’s eyes glisten like jasper, and the street lights halo his hair, highlighting bronze and gold, glittering metallics. Around them, the snow falls in a hush, and everything is still except for the whisper of the flakes and the rustle of their clothes. It’s like the entire road is holding its breath.  
  
And there, in the middle of it, James is technicolor while everything else is black and white. He is sprawled in the snow, his legs splayed wide open, Kendall’s arm clutched in his hand, and he just can’t stop cracking up. He makes light dance in Kendall’s chest like fireflies.  
  
 _He is_ _really ridiculously beautiful_ , Kendall thinks.  
  
They walk until the moon is low, a polished marble in the sky, and morning is riding in like an army, prepared to conquer. They fall asleep in a fort of blankets that they’ve built, a sacred space created just for the two of them. It is something separate from Logan and Carlos, something untouchable.  
  
And it means more to Kendall than anything else ever has.  
  
If someone asked, he would say that’s the night he began to fall in love.  
  
It’s not like he can help it. For one, James is fucking gorgeous, and Kendall isn’t blind. He is free in all the ways Kendall wants to be. He’s arrogant and narcissistic and freakishly lovely. He is also kind and vulnerable, but strong. On the ice, he is a beast of a boy. He’s fast, brutal, and dangerous. Off the ice, he is angry. Kendall recognizes that. Kendall likes that. Sometimes Kendall watches him out of the corner of his eyes as they track footprints in the snow and hopes almost desperately that James is like the stories his mom told him when he was a little boy, about finding the truest of true loves.  
  
It wouldn’t be so bad, with him. He’s like a sculpture of a boy that changes every time Kendall looks; always beautiful, always James. And more; when they’re together, Kendall feels safe.  
  
Invincible.  
  
Complete.  
  
Like nothing can hurt him, except for James himself. And Kendall wants to believe that James would never do that. He _lets_ himself believe that.  
  
People lie to themselves all the time.  
  
The thing is, Kendall needs that feeling, more than anything. He’s in high school now, and when he says too much about his parents, people look at him like there are cracks running across the surface of his body. Like he’s broken. So he doesn’t say anything at all. He holds his head up high and pretends it doesn’t matter that his dad isn’t interested in having a kid. James makes Kendall feel strong, and Kendall hasn’t felt strong in so very long. He _needs_ it, because…  
  
Parents are selfish.  
  
Parents are people.  
  
They finalize the divorce smack in the middle of Kendall’s freshman year. It should be this gigantic tragedy, this thing where James, Logan, and Carlos have Kendall’s back every step of the way.  
  
Instead, Logan’s grandma croaks. Kendall doesn’t know how to bring up the subject in the middle of a funeral, wearing a suit that is too tight in all the wrong places. So he doesn’t. During the quiet dinner that follows the reception, Kendall sees James looking across the table. He throws him a half-hearted grin, crooked and a little sad, except James isn’t actually looking at him. His eyes are trained on Logan, almost absently. A little…wistfully.  
  
Kendall frowns. It shouldn’t be weird. James and Logan have been friends since, like, the dark ages, and Logan’s broken-hearted about his grandma. But…something about it makes his skin feel tight. And later that night, James is gone. Kendall lies in his sleeping bag, thinking about Logan, about James, a terrible knot in his gut. On a normal day, he’d forget about it, but this isn’t a normal day.  
  
What if Logan’s not okay?  
  
It’s friendship, not anything more than that, which makes him disentangle his legs from Carlos’s and stand, pulling on a hoodie to ward off the cold. He creeps out of Logan’s room and towards the stairwell, where light glows, warmth and shadows. In the kitchen, the rain hits the window like rocks, like the sky is trying to flatten them into the ground. Kendall’s first thought is that James is hugging Logan, which makes perfect sense.  
  
Until he realizes he can see the shape of James’s spine beneath Logan’s splayed hands.  
  
Thou shalt not covet what doesn’t belong to you. Kendall is well aware of that.  
  
Consequently, this is the moment when Kendall _gives up_ on James. He allows himself to think that maybe it would be different if he’d met James first, but he does not ever think any farther than that. He has this image of Logan burned on the back of his eyelids, tiny, pale, and vulnerable. And no matter how much Kendall cares about James, he can’t do that to Logan. He doesn’t want any of his friends to feel the way he does every day, a wound festering inside of them, never able to heal.  
  
Kendall thinks, _no more fairytales_.

  
\---

  
**8.**  
  
The night of Logan’s grandmother’s funeral, Carlos wakes up to an empty room.  
  
Of course he goes to find Kendall, and of course he ends up seeing the thing that neither of them ever should have witnessed. When he realizes what’s going on; what he’s hearing, it’s like a puck to the gut, like the time he fell out of his tree house or the drop on a roller coaster. He instinctively reaches for his helmet, wanting the reassurance of plastic protection, but it’s up in Logan’s room.  
  
Logan, who is in the kitchen, presumably with James, making that noise that Carlos has only ever heard coming from his brother’s room late at night, his silhouette outlined by the white glow of his laptop screen.  
  
Kendall is just standing there, not moving, not even breathing for all that Carlos can tell. And for the first time in his life, Carlos imagines what it would be like to make that noise…  
  
For _Kendall_.

  
\---

  
**9.**  
  
Kendall’s mom is yelling at him.  
  
It doesn’t even matter about what; Kendall is always getting yelled at about sleeping in until one or breaking a vase or causing some kind of mischief. He’s a troublemaker, and on a normal day, he’s cool with that. But today, all he can focus on is how angry his mom looks, and how hard her words are, and suddenly, without meaning to, he’s saying, “Mom. Dad doesn’t love me,” voice cracking into shards.  
  
It’s a cruel, manipulative move, and it does what it’s meant to. Kendall spends an hour wrapped in his mom’s arms while she tells him that he is her entire world. She says his dad loves him _so damn much_ , and that she does too, and that if she had the money, she would shower him with gifts, and _oh yeah_. They were fighting over the new skates that she can’t afford to buy him.  
  
“Why don’t you just go after dad for child support, mom?” Kendall frowns at the tightness around her eyes.  
  
“If I did that, do you think he’d keep talking to you and Katie? Do you think he’d swing by and take you guys to the zoo?”  
  
Kendall considers. His dad is a bastard, and it hurts to admit out loud, but- “Probably not. Who cares?”  
  
“You’ll care. When you’re older.”  
  
“I won’t,” Kendall insists.  
  
“You will.” His mom looks at him then with so much sadness in her eyes that Kendall can’t take it. He stares at the floor. “And you need to stop being so mad, sweetie. You’re not punishing anyone but yourself.”  
  
“I’m just…”  
  
“I know, and I’m sorry this has been so hard for you. When you’re older…well. Never stop believing that love will find you.” His mom hugs him tight, humming under her breath.  
  
Love. Pssh.  
  
Love is a ghost. The idea of it lingers, haunts every move that Kendall makes. He fears it now.  
  
Every time he’s near James, his moss agate gaze is a spotlight, and Kendall basks in its warm glow while simultaneously hating himself. He knows he should tell James what he’s feeling, just for closure, just to get it the hell out of the way. It’s not like he’d even actually be hurting Logan, because for some reason, Logan and James don’t seem to be together _together_. They carry on like they never even fucked. So really, words like _I like you_ shouldn’t be so hard for Kendall to say, not to his best friend. Just…every time Kendall decides to say it, Logan comes along and James gives him this look and…  
  
Kendall’s not really as brave as everyone gives him credit for. He thinks maybe James would be happy if he said it out loud. James might even say it back. The problem is, Kendall doesn’t think James will mean it. And he doesn’t think he’s ready to be destroyed like that.  
  
James ends up being the one who makes the first move. Kendall’s mad at his father, but what else is new? He’s past the point of pissed, really. He’s just _numb_ now. But the man is skipping Katie’s birthday next week, and he made Kendall’s mom cry, again, so yeah. Maybe there’s a little bit of anger left in him. Kendall’s ranting to James about it, telling him, “Fuck the marines. Fuck them, and _fuck_ my dad,” clenching his fingers into fists over and over again.  
  
“Dude.”  
  
Kendall is ashamed that he can’t keep his emotions under control. He hides his face in his arms, propped on the kitchen table. He confesses, “I worry about him all the time. I shouldn’t worry about him, because he left us, but- all the time.”  
  
The way his voice cracks is not very dignified at all. He flushes.  
  
James reaches out and strokes a finger down the side of Kendall’s cheekbone, and Kendall caves, leaning into it, needing the familiar touch to make himself feel okay again.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
“I don’t know,” James responds, voice a little sardonic, a little cold. “You were throwing the word fuck around like you actually wanted to do something with it.”  
  
Kendall’s throat closes up. He feels like he’s been punched in the stomach. “Are you hitting on me?”  
  
“Fuck yes.”  
  
Kendall knows better. He knows not to go down this road. But that doesn’t stop his body from moving, until he is straddling James’s hips, kissing him deep and hard, and it’s everything he ever wanted.  
  
James’s eyes are luminous, and his skin of his arms beneath Kendall’s palms feels like a firebrand, like if Kendall pulls away he’ll be marked forever more. James’s hands are a heavy, hot weight on his waist, and Kendall thinks that he will be, scorched by James’s searing hands and his smoldering eyes and the feeling that blazes inside Kendall’s chest every time he looks at him.  
  
It doesn’t mean anything. Kendall’s not stupid. He realizes that even if he goes through with this, James will keep on fucking nameless boys and girls and maybe even Logan. Sex will not make Kendall special in his eyes. It doesn’t stop Kendall from shoving James’s pants down past his hips, yanking his shirt up and peppering kisses across his best friend’s spine. He loses himself like that, screwing James into his kitchen counter, letting go of all the things that his mother told him to cherish, and it’s fine. Kendall will give James all the firsts he has left. This is all he needs. Not a static-filled phone call, punctuated with silence, or something ridiculous like love.  
  
Love does not exist for boys like Kendall Knight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how love will wreck a dynasty; piece by piece, until they are scattered in the wind.
> 
> In the end days, all that will connect the four of them is how much they despise each other.

**10.**  
  
Carlos spends a lot of time feeling like a sidekick.  
  
He resents it, resents the idea that he’s silly or unnecessary or someone extraneous to the dynamic of their group. He was here before any of them, before James or Logan ever even knew who Kendall Knight was. He hates it and he hates them, hates that James and Logan are forcing him into the background of their friendship. But then Kendall will sling his arm over Carlos’s shoulder and all the resentment will vanish.  
  
He is still the one that Kendall loves best.  
  
That’s what he thinks until the day he walks into the Knight’s house unannounced. He goes straight up to Kendall’s room because that is what he’s always done. Only, right before he walks through the door he hears, “You look _stunning_.”  
  
Carlos skids to a stop, holding onto the doorframe for balance.  
  
“I look like Kenneth Cole just threw up on me,” Kendall replies, and Carlos can hear the grimace in his voice.  
  
He can also imagine how James’s face lights up when he exclaims, “Ha! But you know who Kenneth Cole is now.”  
  
Kendall laughs, a little muffled. “You are so easy to please.” And then, “Can I take these clothes off now?”  
  
Carlos wouldn’t think anything of it, except for the way Kendall’s voice spikes low, is almost husky. He peers around the doorframe and sees that Kendall has roped James in close, arms at his waist. He is rubbing his hands up and down along James’s sides, his slim hips and the definition of his abs. Carlos imagines those fingers against his skin. He watches, breath held, feeling like an intruder. He’s not sure why; as far as friendships go, the four of them have always been on the touchier, feelier side. But something about the way Kendall and James are standing, angled towards each other, caught in each other’s gazes, makes Carlos feel awkward and uncertain and a little bit innocent.  
  
“I think you should keep them on,” James says, “You look good. Better than you do in that plaid travesty.”  
  
Kendall shakes his head and noses at James’s cheekbone. He says, “You are a giant ball of queer, and you are trying to roll over me.”  
  
“I’m trying to stop you from committing fashion suicide,” James argues, and it’s only when he bridges the distance between the two of them, sighing into Kendall’s open mouth, that Carlos gets where all of that anxiety is coming from.  
  
His instincts are quicker than his brain, apparently.  
  
In that moment, all Carlos feels is angry. James always gets what he wants with that winsome smile and his too-pretty eyes, variegated greens-gold-browns like Nevada Lapis. Carlos thought that he knew what hate was before, minutes ago, but really that was nothing. It was mild irritation. It was simple jealousy.  
  
This new thing that blossoms in his chest _burns_.  
  
He goes to Logan’s house, finds his friend bent over a textbook, crunching numbers through his head like it’s easy. Carlos stands over him and demands, “Aren’t you with James?”  
  
Logan’s head snaps up, math all forgotten. Carefully, he asks, “What do you mean?”  
  
“You know what I mean. You guys are sleeping together.” Logan blinks. Carlos adds, “I saw you.”  
  
“Once,” Logan says, and he looks a little shy in admitting it. “We slept together once. Why, uh. Why are you asking about that now?”  
  
“James is -“ Carlos feels bile in his throat. He takes a deep breath, tries again, can’t think of how to finish the sentence other than in rude words.  
  
 _A_ _Slut._  
  
 _A Whore._  
  
 _A Skank_.  
  
He shuts his mouth.  
  
Logan seems to get it anyway. Quietly, he says, “James is complicated.”  
  
Carlos bites out, “Dude. There’s nothing complicated about instant gratification. He’s a-“  
  
“ _Don’t_. What he is is my best friend. Yours too. James is James. Let it go.”  
  
“Doesn’t it bug you that he sleeps with anything that moves?”  
  
Logan shrugs. There are lines of pain written across his face, and Carlos can read them more easily than any book.  
  
“He can do what he wants,” Logan says steadily.  
  
“You love him,” Carlos accuses, understanding that it’s true only as the words tumble out. “You love him, and you’re letting him step all over you.”  
  
“It’s not like that.”  
  
“It is,” Carlos insists. His anger grows. “I can’t believe you. I can’t believe any of you.”  
  
“Either,” Logan corrects automatically.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You’re mad at James and me, right? So it’s either.”  
  
Evenly, Carlos states, “I mean what I said.”  
  
Logan may be content to be a side note in James’s life, overlooked and underappreciated, but Carlos will not be that in Kendall’s. This is just an obstacle, a thing that he needs to overcome, desperately.  
  
Garcias are hardy. That’s what his mom always says, and it’s true. Carlos is resilient. This is really just like all those songs his dad and his brother used to listen to, southern twang and cowboy hearts.  
  
Does it even count as love if it doesn’t hurt?

\---

  
 **11.**  
  
Kendall’s not stupid. He knows that what’s happening is wrong. He loves James; he loves the way their bodies fit together like puzzle pieces and the way he feels sharper, cleverer, clearer whenever James is around. He loves the way James makes him want to sing, the joy that bubbles up in his chest whenever he’s near. He loves how his heart starts to race when they’re sharing the same space and how James frustrates him, challenges him, and in the end, makes him into a better person than Kendall ever thought he could be.  
  
But James doesn’t love him.  
  
James loves Logan, or maybe just himself; who even knows? He goes on dates with slutty girls and slutty boys and has plenty of slutty sex. Kendall’s relationship with James is better than he thought it could be, a kind of punch-drunkenness that never goes away, but that awareness is always there.  
  
No matter how much solo-time James spends with Kendall, it doesn’t mean they don’t hang out with the other guys. Carlos is still one of the most important people in Kendall’s life, and despite all his misgivings about what went down between Logan and James, Logan’s still his best friend.  He tutors Kendall through chemistry and helps him figure out plays for the team. They have monster-movie marathons and scrabble play offs (that Kendall always loses) when James and Carlos are off being individuals. One time Kendall even talks Logan into getting plastered off the peach schnapps his mom keeps on the highest shelves in the kitchen, and they spend the night in a heap on Logan’s floor, talking about the things they want from the future.  
  
Kendall has heard people say that Logan is cold because he likes science and numbers better than people. But Kendall knows that Logan loves the three of them more than any mathematical theory or scientific hypothesis. And that’s why it bugs him so much that he  can’t forget one pivotal fact: sometimes James looks at Logan a certain way, and Kendall feels like his bones have splintered, piercing right through his heart.  
  
Kendall wishes that James would just let him go already.  
  
He knows he’s a little jealous. Maybe a lot jealous. Logan’s got this perfect, happy little life, where both his parents are around. They love him to pieces, and so does James, and why doesn’t anyone love Kendall like that? His mom tries so hard, but she works all the time, and Katie stopped liking hugs when she was about two, and just…okay, Kendall’s really, really jealous.  
  
He wants to be like Logan, like all the people out there who are whole and happy and who have never had their heart broken. Problem is, he will never, ever be one of those people. He’s been fucked up since he was six years old, and it’s not just his dad or Carlos or James.  
  
It’s Kendall.  
  
He is pain.  
  
He is loss.  
  
He is grief.  
  
But he is also strong. That’s what he’s been told his whole life; that he is ridiculously, magnificently _strong_. So he will not be pain, or loss, or grief. He will be better than that.  
  
Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or the next day, but one day, Kendall decides, he will be _happy_.  
  
If only it were as simple as a choice.  
  
Being better is _hard_. Sometimes, even when he’s together with James, it’s bad, so fucking bad. Like when Logan and Carlos are sleeping upstairs, and Kendall gets that James is toeing a line. There is space between their mouths, James dipping close and then moving back, teasing, and he obviously wants Logan to hear.  
  
Kendall isn’t comfortable with this, until he is. Until he’s lost in it, lost in James, and he thinks, _fuck it_. He doesn’t care if Logan hears.  
  
Maybe he even wants him to.  
  
But then other times, James comes to Kendall’s house, and when they are together it’s like time turns to molasses, thick, golden, and slow. He can’t break free, even when he tries. It is good, so fucking good, when James sheathes himself on Kendall like he belongs there, and the after parts too, when they lay tangled together beneath the paisley print sheets of a sheet-fort, laughing.  
  
“Hey,” James says, and Kendall knows what’s coming before it actually happens; he knows the second James’s fingers tangle in his hair, the second he pulls him in close for a kiss. “Why are you so perfect?”  
  
“I’m not,” Kendall says, swallowing. The idea of perfection makes him feel uncomfortable. Untouchable, when all he wants is to be touched and understood.  
  
“Yeah you are,” James argues. “You’re perfect for me.”  
  
Kendall waits for the unspoken _but_ , because this isn’t a fairytale. There has to be a _but_.  
  
It never comes, though. James is still smiling, still planting tiny kisses on his lips, and it makes no sense, because he’s the perfect one. Sometimes it’s like James is the only one who sees Kendall- the person he is beneath the façade of leader and best friend- and even when Kendall knows that what he feels is dangerous, it’s enthralling. Being _seen_.  
  
Of course, the bad parts don’t go away, don’t leave when they fight, raucous and loud. More than once Kendall tells James he’s donedone _done_ with this, and James says quietly, “I’m not going to leave you. So stop trying to drive me away,” like he _understands_.  
  
Kendall wants to believe him. He really, genuinely does. But the next day James is out with some girl who has hearts in her eyes, his hand slipping up her skirt, and _oh_ , Kendall thinks.  
  
He can’t breathe.  
  
He has to breathe.  
  
He forces himself through it, the same way he always does when things get hard. He pretends he is invincible, because that’s what people expect from him.  
  
And then it’s good again, like when they are slippery _wet_ , bodies sliding together, catching moisture between them. James’s hands move with ease, like the two of them have been greased, and Kendall feels raw and oversensitized from the hot water. His heart is in his throat, his skin flushed red. Droplets cling to his eyelashes, his philtrum, and track down the planes of his stomach. They glisten between the ridges of James’s knuckle as he strokes over them both.  
  
In a soft voice, James asks, “Can I fuck you?”  
  
He can, and Kendall says so, and he watches the way James’s eyes flicker open and closed, the barely restrained bliss and the part of his lips, wet, wet, everything’s so damn _wet_. The water is getting cold, the tile even chillier against his shoulder blades, but James is hot, buried inside him, and Kendall can’t concentrate on anything but that. He is breaking into pieces, coming undone. And after he has the solid weight of James’s body against his, his frigid feet searching for warmth against Kendall’s calves, his bony knees an insistent press against Kendall’s inner thighs. James mumbles for him to _stop squirming_ , to _stay still and be warm_ , and Kendall laughs, the smell of James’s toothpaste and his hair products in his nose.  
  
So yeah, Kendall isn’t sure what it is that they’re doing, but he knows that he wants this for as long as he is allowed to have it; James’s laughter rumbling against his skin, the wet slide of his mouth and the crazy tilt of his smile.  
  
Besides, it’s really hard for Kendall to keep his hands to himself when James is around. Whenever they are alone, Kendall pulls him in as close as he can, like maybe if he tries hard enough, they’ll assimilate each other, become one person, two hearts, never ever beating alone again. He doesn’t trust anyone, not with his feelings- stupid, dumb, moronic feelings- but he makes a conscious decision to trust James, to ignore every sign and _choose him_.  
  
Sure, there’s every chance that James is lying through his teeth. But Kendall is just so sick of not trusting anyone with his heart. He wants to try.  
  
Good things don’t happen unless you try, right?  
  
That’s what Kendall thinks when James’s hands hover over his hips and he whispers, “It’s you. Just you. Only _you_.”  
  
Kendall closes his eyes and pretends that he means it.  
  
This is the thing he’s always feared. All his reason, all his strength; it’s slipping away. And he lets it.  
  
No one is smart about love.

\---

  
 **12.**  
  
Carlos lives stolen moments and secrets.  
  
Sometimes he will stare at Kendall across the kitchen table, blatantly.  
  
 _Look at me_ , he’ll think. _Look at me. Look at me_.  
  
Kendall never does. He’s always caught somewhere between Logan and James, between jealousy and desperate love. And Carlos hates him for ignoring his presence, but simultaneously, he feels bad.  
  
The entire time Kendall stares at Logan and James, they’re only ever looking at each other. He thinks that Kendall is going to let James rip his heart straight out of his chest, and Carlos doesn’t know how to stop it.  
  
He also does not know how to deal with the loneliness, or the vague idea that his best friends are leaving him behind.  
  
Telling James after hockey practice one day, “I want you to fuck me,” probably isn’t the best way to cope with that.  
  
James takes one wide eyed look at him and concludes, “No.”  
  
“What? Why? You’re doing Kendall.” The words taste bitter in his mouth.  
  
James’s jaw sets in a line. “That’s different.”  
  
“How? I’m not good enough?” Carlos doesn’t mean to sound so wrecked about it. Every second he spends with James is like poking at an open wound, but it is also a kind of wonderful, because James is fun and spontaneous and surprisingly sweet. It’s not all that hard to see why Kendall and Logan trip all over themselves when James is around.  
  
Carlos holds his love in one hand and his hatred in the other, and sometimes it’s hard to tell which emotion is which, because they are both strong and deep and unyielding. James is his best friend, whether he likes it or not. He can’t wave away the summers they spent together at Camp Wonky Donkey, or their time on the hockey team, or the pizza parties and sleepovers and time spent bouncing on the gigantic trampoline in James’s back yard. Or the pranks or the late night air guitar jam sessions or the countless lessons on girls.  
  
James is his best friend, but he is also an obstacle, and it’s hard to reconcile those two ideas. At least it would be easier if James would just let him be a part of this tragedy too. But James just stares. “That’s not- you don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
“I know you can fuck Logan, and you can fuck over Kendall, but you won’t fucking do anything with me,” Carlos retorts with more venom than he knew he had. “How is it different?”  
  
“It just is, okay?”  
  
Carlos feels an inkling of fear, ice cold, dripping down his insides. What if James really does love Kendall?  
  
James says, “I’m sorry, but…you should do it with someone you…you know. Love. I guess.”  
  
 _Did you_? is what Carlos wants to ask.  
  
He keeps his mouth shut. James stalks out of the locker room, looking troubled.  
  
“I’ll do it.” His head snaps to the right, and he sees Logan. His heart kicks up like a bass drum.  
  
“What?” Logan shrugs, looking nervous. “Were you listening?” He nods, slow, deliberate. His eyes glitter in the dim fluorescent lighting of the locker room. Carlos asks, “How much did you hear?”  
  
“I already knew. About Kendall. If that’s what you’re asking.” Logan shifts from foot to foot, looks away, looks back, and Carlos is caught in the goldstone color of his irises.  
  
“Why would you-“ Carlos sucks in a deep breath “–want to do that for me?”  
  
“If you’re so desperate that you’ll go to James, who knows where else you’ll be willing to go?”  
  
“I’m not like you all.” Carlos waves his hands, tries to bat away the bitterness in his voice. “I wouldn’t just get it anywhere.”  
  
“I know. So. Do it with me.” And just like that, Logan kisses him. It’s not terrible. Logan isn’t unattractive, and he’s got the general idea of how to kiss down. But. Carlos can feel his body trembling and he pulls back. Apologetically, Logan says, “I’ve, uh.” He flushes. “I’ve only done this once.”  
  
 _With James_ , Carlos knows is the thing left unspoken. “Why are you doing this?”  
  
“You’re my friend.”  
  
“That’s not a good enough reason,” Carlos insists.  
  
Logan’s eyes close. “Do you want to have sex or not?”  
  
“You’re not exactly putting me in the mood, dude.”  
  
“Fine. You’re doing this to get back at Kendall, right?” Logan says, and the words make Carlos cringe.  
  
“No. I’m sick of being the only one who doesn’t know what it feels like.”  
  
“So why don’t you do it with a girl?”  
  
“I’m not in love with a girl,” Carlos says steadily, holding his ground. Their words echo off the metal lockers around them, and he kind of really hopes no one else is lingering. He thinks of Jesse, of the vile things he says about gay guys, and winces.  
  
But Logan’s face softens. “Neither am I.”  
  
“You could have James, you know. If you wanted him.”  
  
“He doesn’t want that. He’s…” Logan waves a hand in the air, trying to convey what James is. He probably means different things than the nasty words that flit through Carlos’s head.  
  
“Are you agreeing to fuck me because you think it will hurt Kendall if he finds out? Or James?”  
  
For a terrible moment, Logan is silent. Carlos turns to walk away, his duffel a heavy weight on his shoulder.  
  
“Carlos, wait. James is right. Your first time should be with someone you love. Mine was.” Logan isn’t this blushing, delicate flower now; he’s completely earnest, vulnerable. He’s a shadow of the man he’s going to become one day, and Carlos finds himself strangely intrigued by it. “I’m not…I don’t…it won’t mean as much as it should, but I love you like a brother. I’ll- we can do this. If you want to.”  
  
“It won’t be about Kendall or James,” Carlos says stubbornly. “It has to be about us or it’s not worth anything.”  
  
“Carlos.” Logan folds his arms around himself. “I can’t promise that. I’m lonely. And I think about him all the time.”  
  
He doesn’t have to say which _him_ he means.  
  
“Me too.” Carlos says quietly. Kendall’s face flashes into his mind, eyes are the color sea glass, worn at the edges, bruised blue beneath blond lashes. Lately he’s been looking tired to the point of sickness. Because of…  
  
Oh, fuck it. Carlos steps up into Logan’s space and says, “Okay.”  
  
They go back to Logan’s house, and it is awkward, relearning the shape of Logan’s body without his clothes. But it’s also kind of nice. Carlos always figured that like most of the guys in town, he’d lose it to a pretty girl in the back of his dad’s car. Hiding out beneath the covers and a constellation of glow in the dark stars in Logan’s house is somehow better and worse at the same time.  
  
Better because it’s Logan, because Carlos can brush the awkward away when he needs to, when he needs to let himself feel the way they move together instead.  
  
Worse because he knows the how and the why of what they’re doing, and he knows that it will never happen again. It can’t, because it would be one more tragedy on top of this clusterfuck of tragic they’ve all been building, and Carlos refuses to contribute to that any more than he has to. They’ll always love each other like brothers, but anything else is impossible. Fledgling love can’t grow under the weight of Kendall and James; they are too brilliant, too beautiful, too much. They are walking, talking gorgeous catastrophes, and in their shadow Logan and Carlos spend a lot of time feeling extraneous.  
  
That’s why it’s so tempting.  
  
“We could…” Logan trails off, once it’s over. “We could be with each other instead.”  
  
He tucks the comforter up under his chin, hiding his nakedness. Carlos shoves it back down and plops his head on Logan’s shoulder. Into the skin of his collarbone he mumbles, “No we couldn’t.”  
  
“Can we pretend?” Logan asks softly. “Just for a little while?”  
  
Carlos props himself up on one arm and says, “Okay.”  
  
He kisses Logan’s lips and tries not to feel hollow inside.

\---

  
 **13.**  
  
It is not all pain and tragedy.  
  
There are times when Kendall and James are best friends, and there are times when they are perfect lovers and there are times when they are the epitome of domestic bliss. They bicker over remote controls and share breath while they make love and they epically fail at concocting pancakes for Katie’s birthday. They play hockey and they laugh and they check out models in magazines. They compete over silly things and they think up zany plans and they watch as they bring each other off in the hush of the night.  
  
There are countless moments where Kendall and James are perfect for each other.  
  
It does not negate all the moments where they are not.  
  
Kendall puts an end to it one night in early winter, when snow is spiraling from the sky, cold white lace that’s too pretty for the misery Kendall is feeling. James comes onto him with bright red lipstick smeared on the corner of his mouth, and Kendall _can’t_. He’s got enough pride and enough fiery anger to find strength in the pit of his stomach, to clutch it close and tell James it’s over.  
  
And for a while, it is. James leaves him alone, fucking with everyone in the whole wide world except for Kendall.  
  
Then California happens.  
  
Gustavo Rocque wants Kendall, and okay, maybe it’s a little intoxicating to be chosen by this big time record producer, a kind of affirmation Kendall’s dad has never been able to give. He’s smug about it, vindicated, somehow, and he is also pissed as hell that the guy was able to treat James like a cockroach scurrying underfoot. People who recognize Kendall’s talent are automatically beneath him somehow, and it’s the ones who do not fold like a deck of cards that he wants to win over, but this time around, he tries his damndest to win Gustavo over.  
  
For James.  
  
It doesn’t even matter that they’re not fucking anymore. Kendall will do anything he has to if it means James will stay close, will keep on looking at him with that mixture of wonder and adoration, like maybe Kendall actually deserves something as grand and terrifying as his friendship, his devotion.  
  
And of course, that backfires. Kendall gets James exactly what he wants, and next thing he knows, they’re lying sweaty and naked in the back of Mr. Diamond’s SUV, all that horsepower a quiet hum beneath their bodies, legs intertwined.  
  
Kendall swallows down James’s gasps, is pinned by the thick pressure of his dick moving inside of Kendall, forcing stars behind his eyelids. The car quakes.  
  
Outside, powder falls in a hush; nearly March and the world is still a snowglobe.  
  
When it’s over they are limbs and a racehorse heartbeat, one person with too many arms and legs. James rakes his fingers through Kendall’s hair, pushes his sweaty bangs from his forehead and says, “God, you’re amazing.”  
  
“I thought you hated me.”  
  
The sweat cools against his skin, making him shiver, and he burrows against James’s body like he can steal away his heat. James rolls his eyes, hugs him in close to his chest, one hand on the back of Kendall’s neck and the other right between his shoulder blades. “I did. And then you had to be all stupid and noble, _again_. How do you always end up doing that?”  
  
“I did it for you, dude.” Kendall kisses the closest patch of James’s skin he can find, somewhere between his sternum and his pectorals. He murmurs, “I’ll do anything for you.”  
  
James smiles then, more brilliant than anything Kendall has ever seen, and it turns his bones molten and hot, makes him want and yearn and _need_. He pecks James’s lips, and then again, draws him into a kiss that turns into something more, and the world is theirs; it consists solely of James and Kendall and the car and the night and the snow.  
  
California will be good for them, Kendall thinks.  
  
There’s nothing like a grand romantic gesture, like a cross country move and dreams surrendered to bring two people closer together.

\---

  
 **14.**  
  
Carlos loves California. He wasn’t actually aware being in love with a state was something that could happen, but it does, he is, and he’s having the time of his life.  
  
Of course, it’s exhausting, being a superstar, and sometimes he gets tired. On a muggy day near the end of spring, he convinces Kendall to take him to the beach. He tries to invite Logan and James along too, but Logan’s off dating or not dating or whatever he’s doing with Camille, and James is trying to land a modeling gig, so. It’s them. They hire a car on Rocque Records’ tab and drive straight to the coast where the air smells swampy, thick with condensation and the salty scent of low tide. Carlos can taste lightning on his tongue.  
  
It’s not really an ideal beach day.  
  
Kendall doesn’t seem to give a damn. He kicks off his shoes and falls back in the sand, sending a puff of it up in the air, sparkling in the dim sunlight before it settles again. “Let’s just come here every day.”  
  
“I am totally down with that,” Carlos replies. Kendall laughs, his gaze green as aventurine. Carlos can feel the sound of it in his bones.  
  
They build a sand castle, a fortress, really, complete with turrets and a drawbridge and a moat. It takes an hour of careful craftsmanship, and when it’s done, they stomp it under their feet, destroying all their hard work. Kendall carries Carlos on his back, crashes them both through the surf like a gallant steed, until one foul beast of a wave takes them down.  
  
Kendall is gorgeous, shining. He glows like stained glass beneath the slate gray sky. He laughs reckless and wild and carefree, the same way he’s been laughing since Carlos first met him.  
  
He steals Carlos’s breath away.  
  
In that moment, with the ocean churning around them, Carlos wants to wend his hands around Kendall’s soaking wet body and kiss him. He wants to twist his fingers into the short hairs on the back of Kendall’s neck and slide their bodies slick and wet together.  
  
He wants to see what it’s like, to have all that brilliance, all to himself.   
  
But he can’t because Kendall is with James.  
  
Still.  
  
Carlos saw it himself, their first week there. He was restless, homesick, walking through the lobby with the vague idea that he’d take an illicit night swim. He just needed to stretch his muscles, and besides, pissing off Bitters has the added benefit of being fun. The moon was huge, lighting up the whole sky, making the palm trees into skeletal silhouettes.  
  
And it turned the outline of Kendall and James in the pool, shinywet _naked_ clear as daylight.  
  
Now Kendall stands in front of him, still shiny, still wet, but not Carlos’s to undress, and the idea makes him want to lash out.  
  
That’s what no one ever tells you about love. They say not to hurry, that if you wait, things will _work out_. No one ever talks about how, when you love someone so much that it aches, you start to hate them. With every inch of your being, you despise them for making you hurt so bad. Even now, here, in the middle of this perfect day, love turns sour in Carlos’s stomach. It becomes a dark, bitter thing.  
  
It makes it easy to hate the world too, until, by the end of the day, he can’t see the ocean or the sky or anything past the thin veil of despair and self-loathing that covers his eyes.  
  
As they leave the beach he thinks, Kendall’s like a country song.  
  
Kendall is heartbreak.

\---

  
 **15.**  
  
On the fourth of July, everyone wears red white and blue, and no one gets more into all the patriotism than Kendall. It’s the one day a year he lets his pride shine through, forgives his dad for caring more about a country, about a _thing_ , than he does about his son and daughter.  
  
This fourth of July, Kendall fucks James behind the palms in the middle of a campfire jam. It’s fast and it’s awkward, James’s jeans shoved down around his thighs while Kendall pumps into him. They come to the soundtrack of teenagers cheering, whooping, screaming, supporting each other and their country and drowning out the symphony of moans right behind them. It’s dirty and it’s good and it’s exactly what Kendall needs.  
  
 _James_ is exactly what Kendall needs.  
  
California is everything that he hoped it would be for the two of them. They sing together, they joke around together, they spend practically every second within reach of each other’s fingertips. Hell, they even learn to surf together, or, well, James picks surfing up with the same ease and grace with which he takes to anything. He’s practically a pro in a week. Of course he decides that Kendall needs to try, and Kendall doesn’t exactly charm the sea into submission.  
  
He’s frustrated, but before he starts beating his fists against the lifeguard station, James’s hands wrap around his middle, balancing Kendall on the surfboard.  
  
“I’ll teach you,” he murmurs into the skin of Kendall’s throat. “Don’t you trust me?”  
  
“Always," Kendall replies, sinking into his arms and the heat emanating from his chest. James nips at his earlobe, and he shivers against the lick of his tongue. Together they waste away the day, sun kissed and golden, trying to conquer the ocean, trying to melt into each other.  
  
That night, Kendall rests his hand against James’s chest, listening to the steady rise and fall of his breath, feeling the thumpthumpthump of his heart. He can’t fall asleep, but he thinks maybe he doesn’t want to. Maybe he’d rather just do this, stay up well into the wee hours of morning, memorizing the rhythm of James’s body; the speed of his pulse and the slow tempo of his inhale _exhale_. Kendall wants to exist forever in the space between each breath James takes.  
  
He whispers into James’s shoulder, into muscle and skin, “Please, just…I trust you. Be careful.”  
  
James makes a snuffling noise and turns his head towards Kendall, chin resting on Kendall’s hair. Kendall smiles, pulling him closer. What is he even talking about?  
  
Of course James is going to be careful.  
  
Or, at least, that’s what Kendall hopes. It’s not like he’s exactly given up on being so…James. One morning Kendall finds him walking around the apartment in nothing but his boxers, and he can see the red-blue of hickeys that stand out against his throat and his chest. James is still seeing people on the side, still dating girls and boys, and one time even the casting director of a commercial, and ugh.  
  
Every time it drives Kendall to the edge, possessive jealousy coiling in his chest. But James has never done well with enclosed spaces or relationships. Kendall won’t be the one to force him into one.  
  
He cares too much about James to try to tie him down.  
  
Kendall hates thinking about that part of their relationship. It brings him down, down, down until he’s drowning in self-pity, wallowing, and Kendall hates wallowing. He lets Carlos drag him out to the beach that afternoon, even though the ocean unnerves him. It makes Kendall feel like he’s standing at the end of the world, right on the edge of _something_. He just can never figure out what.  
  
He doesn’t let that shake him, though, messing around with Carlos in the pale light of a slate gray day. The beach is empty, but Carlos is bright, brilliant, a beacon.  
  
Of course.  
  
Since they were eight years old, there has always been this one constant in Kendall’s life; Carlos makes everything better. He kicks his feet through the water, the weak sunlight reflecting off his eyes. His gaze is dark as obsidian, but the smile on his lips is radiant. “I love it here, Kendall.”  
  
“Me too,” Kendall agrees, even though he’s not so sure.  
  
He’ll never voice that out loud. The guys, all of them, treat California like it’s the holy land. Kendall knows that he shouldn’t let other people dictate his happiness, but he doesn’t know how to live entirely on his own. He is tragically unequipped to deal with life without the buffer of James, Carlos, and Logan standing between him and the big, bad world. At least when he focuses on them, he can forget himself, the places he came from and the sadness that worms its way through every memory he has. If they like California, he’s resolved that he will too, and besides, if he says that he has doubts out loud, Carlos will look at him like he’s kicked a puppy.  
  
Kendall can’t do that to Carlos. He can’t even think of it.  
  
Carlos stretches, body long and golden-brown, where Kendall’s is practically the color of a sand dollar against all the Hollywood tans. Carlos splashes Kendall in the face and laughs until Kendall flicks it back, and they’re wrestling in the surf, sliding together wet and warm and rough.  
  
Carlos is so…  
  
Kendall shuts down the thought, the same way he’s been doing since he was eight years old. He doesn’t think about the past because the past is dumb. He’s got his best friends and a reasonable amount of success and James, James who says that he’s _perfect_. Usually, that’s enough to keep Kendall moving forward, to keep him from looking too closely at the fissures and the cracks that make up his life. If he lets himself stop, if he thinks about all the shadows, he’ll break down. There’s anger and hysteria that live in the back of his mind, this sullen resentment that’s existed for as long as he can remember, and whenever he’s forced to reflect on things that don’tshouldn’t _can’t_ matter, it builds up in his bones, toxic.  
  
That day, that kiss; it’s one of those things he tries really hard to avoid thinking about. There are times when he thinks about what it would be like to kiss Carlos for real, teeth and tongue and saliva, tasting him, making him beg, but it’s almost an absent thought, something Kendall recognizes as an idle fantasy so far from reality it’s not even worth entertaining. There’s not even the ghost of a chance there, and besides.  
  
He pictures James’s face, imagines him instead, and the thought of it is heat blooming inside of his chest.  
  
When they get back to the Palmwoods, Kendall slides into James’s bed, regardless of the black and blue and red against his throat. James looks at him, all sleepy and sweet. His eyes are a kaleidoscope of green-brown-gold, changing patterns every time Kendall blinks.  
  
He’s so fucking beautiful.  
  
Sometimes Kendall wants to ask James why he keeps coming back. When he tries to voice the question, his mouth goes dry. His throat closes up. Instead they end up fucking, which is their go-to alternative for talking.  
  
Kendall keeps waiting for the day that sex with James becomes routine, becomes a way to get off instead of his favorite thing to do, ever. But it never stops meaning as much as it does. It always feels important, like they are creating history between them. It’s not always perfect, and it’s not always comfortable, but he loves James so damn much that the flaws and awkwardness that occasionally arise are trivial.  
  
Really, he loves him more and more every goddamned day.  
  
Kendall knows it’s completely inadvisable, but it’s Kendall’s heart against his head, his common sense against the way his nerve endings come alive whenever James is around. It’s too hard to fight.  
  
His heart beats for James.

\---

  
 **16.**  
  
Kendall’s watching a hockey game, and no matter how hard Carlos tries, he can’t get his attention. He wants help on these stupid new lyrics that Gustavo had couriered over, and Logan isn’t around, and when he popped his head into James’s room there was a girl and a lot of skin and really Carlos just doesn’t want to know. And now Kendall’s ignoring him.  
  
Carlos is frustrated and annoyed and he feels dumb. He hates feeling dumb. He’s _not_. He’s just got concentration problems, sometimes. Which. Whatever. Thinking about it irritates him even more. He punches Kendall in the arm, because he needs to take it out on someone, but he barely even gets a blink and a half-hearted swat in return.  
  
Maybe that’s why Carlos gathers up the courage to ask, finally, after months and months of waiting and wondering. “What’s going on with you and James?”  
  
He sort of figures Kendall won’t even hear it.  
  
Kendall hears it.  
  
The remote drops to the floor. “What?”  
  
Slowly, Carlos repeats, “What’s going on with you and James?”  
  
Kendall squirms. He keeps his gaze fixed attentively on the TV, a blush crawling up his neck. “I’m not really sure.”  
  
A little bitterly, Carlos says, “Maybe if you two tried keeping your pants on and I don’t know, talking, you could work that out?”  
  
Startled by the malice in his voice, Kendall gives Carlos his full attention.  
  
It’s nice to know he ranks somewhere above crappy sports reporters in Kendall’s esteem.  
  
“We talk.”  
  
“ _Ooh yeah baby right there harder faster_ isn’t a conversation.”  
  
Kendall’s cheeks burn red. “That’s not all we talk about.”  
  
“Could have fooled me.”  
  
Kendall sighs. “Look. Me and James are- we-“ He stops, and Carlos can actually see his resolve strengthen. “Just stay out of it, okay? Can you do that?”  
  
“No!” Carlos bursts, and he’s fully mad now. “He’s got a girl in his room, right now, and you want me to _butt out_?” Kendall stiffens, fingers digging into the couch cushions. Carlos continues, “How are you okay with that?”  
  
“I…it’s his business.”  
  
Carlos doesn’t believe that for a second. Kendall may have systematically ousted Carlos from his inner circle when James came along, but he knows some things. He knows that Kendall believes in love in this dangerous, desperate way.  
  
Because he has to.  
  
Because if he stops, what else is there?  
  
And Carlos thinks that’s every bit as risky as refusing to believe in love’s existence, like James pretends at so very well. Because actually, love doesn’t always conquer all.  
  
“Look, James is my brother. You know that, right?” Carlos squeezes Kendall’s thigh. He gets a tiny shrug in return, a chin jut that’s barely even an acknowledgment. “But- he’s not worth what you’re doing to yourself. Don’t let him tear you apart.”  
  
Kendall slumps. He gives Carlos a weak smile and says, “I’ll be careful. Promise.”  
  
Carlos wants to believe him, but if there’s one thing he knows about Kendall by now, it’s that he thinks promises were made to be broken.

\---

  
 **17.**  
  
Be kind. Be honest. Don’t lie or cheat.  
  
These are the things that Kendall tries to hold to.  
  
He doesn’t always succeed.  
  
Kendall gathers the sheets around his hips and tries not to look at the empty spot in his bed, where James used to be. Waking up naked and alone is getting _old_.  
  
Really.  
  
Fucking.  
  
Old.  
  
It’s probably why he ends up making a mistake.  
  
James and Carlos and Logan mean the world to him. Loyalty and trust aren’t just _words_ to Kendall. They’re visceral, deep in his gut. And it’s a fatal flaw. He can’t help the way that every betrayal cuts at him. So when Jo Taylor comes to the Palmwoods, Kendall pursues her. Why wouldn’t he? Jo is beautiful, and she looks at Kendall like he’s the only person standing in a crowded room.  
  
She looks at him the way Kendall wishes James would.  
  
He knows it’s wrong. He knows his mother raised him better than this. But he also knows his mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She still misses his dad.  
  
Kendall’s seen her cry, now. When she does, it is violent. It is sadness like a tidal wave, like a thing that crashes and crushes and destroys, and a sound like a funeral dirge. It makes Kendall’s heart compress in his chest. And most of all, it makes Kendall wonder, what does she know? Love hasn’t left her without scars.  
  
Yeah, going after Jo is wrong, and yeah, Kendall is a dick for using her. He resents himself for it, and he resents Jo, a little, but most of all, he resents James for trying to win the Palmwoods’ Most Valuable Player award. When they’re alone, together, James is a love song, sweetness with a bitter twist. But when they’re apart?  
  
Kendall is starting to hate him.  
  
He hates the way their bodies fit and the way James owns all of his thoughts. He hates his traitor heart and the way it races at James’s proximity, and he hates the way James makes him think things are okay when they’re not. They’re not okay.  
  
He hates the way James frustrates and challenges him, the way he makes Kendall a better person when Kendall doesn’t want to be better; he just wants to stew in the hate.  
  
And most of all, Kendall hates what James does to Logan.  
  
The morning Logan figures out what’s going on between Kendall and James is one of the awkwardest of Kendall’s life. But he thinks that’s the end of it, thinks that that thunderstruck night between James and Logan when they were fourteen can finally be put to rest.  
  
Kendall prides himself on being an awesome friend, but he won’t give this up. Just once, he wants something that he can have for himself, and he thinks that finally, _finally_ he can.  
  
Only that’s not that end of it.  
  
Kendall tells James, “Logan knows,” and James’s face turns ghost white. He looks terrified, in a way he’s never been around Kendall, not once.  
  
Not ever.  
  
That evening, James goes to talk to Logan, to sort things out.  
  
He doesn’t come back.  
  
Kendall doesn’t freak out. He _doesn’t_. Sure, he’s worried, and sure, it’s not fair. But so what if Logan has known James longer? That shouldn’t matter. It’s not like falling in love depends on proximity. There are more important things; pounding hearts and an ache as wide as the Grand Canyon in a person’s chest and-  
  
Kendall buries his head in his hands. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t fight the feeling that he’s fucked.  
  
Totally.  
  
Royally.  
  
Undeniably.  
  
 _Fucked_.

\---

  
 **18.**  
  
Carlos is moping, feeling like a nobody. There’s been some kind of weird standoff between Kendall, James, and Logan all day, this thing he’s not a part of. This thing he doesn’t entirely understand. He’s feeling lower than low, antisocial and blue.  
  
Other people are jagged edges. Their smiles are prickly sharp.  
  
That’s why he hides out with Katie, losing badly at poker and wallowing in his own uselessness the second they return from the studio. He can’t take the cold war outside, and he can’t fight the feeling that something awful is going to happen. He’s not even surprised when, in the middle of kicking his ass at cards for the millionth time, Katie asks casually, “Do you know what I think is really stupid?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You all love each other. You all love each other so much, and you don’t even see it.”  
  
She won’t say anything else on the matter, won’t open up no matter how much Carlos pries.  
  
But he agrees. The way they treat each other?  
  
It’s so fucking stupid.

\---

  
 **19.**  
  
When he finds out that Logan and James are screwing, it’s like something dies inside of him. Logan walks out of James’s bedroom clad in nothing but a pair of boxers. There is a mark on his neck, like a thumb print, and on his collarbone there is a red-blue tattoo in the shape of James’s mouth. Kendall’s fingers clench into fists, his posture titanium-rigid, a metallic taste on his tongue.  
  
Anger punches a hole in Kendall’s heart, a gaping wound the size of an avocado pit. He says he has a pool date with Jo, even though Jo is stuck on the set of New Town High for the foreseeable future. James calls after him, sounds worried, even, but what is there to worry about?  
  
He’s made his choice.  
  
Kendall shouldn’t even be shocked. He’s known since he was tiny that this is what love does. It destroys you.  
  
He tells himself it’s over, it’s over, it’s _over_ , but then James comes to him that night. Kendall doesn’t even want to let him in, but James forces his way into the room, tells Kendall he’s sorry, says that it’s _him_ , really, it’s _only Kendall_.  
  
Only a moron would believe it.  
  
Kendall is not a moron. But he is desperate. He wants to say _I love you_ , wants to ask James never to leave him, but if he says those things out loud, and James leaves anyway, won’t it make him weak?  
  
He lets James kiss him. It feels foreign, and it’s only halfway into it that Kendall realizes he tastes the way that Logan smells, like spice and pine, clean and fresh. He wants to shove James away, but he pulls him closer instead.  
  
“Please don’t,” Kendall mumbles into his skin. “I need you, please,” and he doesn’t mean it like it sounds, like _get naked_ , like _fuck me_ ; it’s supposed to be more.  
  
Why can’t James ever hear the things he tries to say?  
  
Why can’t he just _listen_?  
  
James maps the contours of his body. He straddles Kendall’s hips, backwards, like he can’t even bear to look at Kendall’s face. All Kendall can see are the flex of his shoulder blades and the dip in his spine, the swell of his ass pressed up against Kendall’s navel. There’s this slick sound, and James’s arm moves, like he’s actually sitting there, touching himself, treating Kendall like furniture. But then James scoots forward and wraps his hand around Kendall’s dick, holding it up against his own.  
  
It’s not just sex.  
  
It’s an apology.  
  
Kendall knows it’s time to let go, but there are two versions of him; the sweet little boy who was taught to hold onto things like magic and fairytales and impossible loyalty, and the bitter realist. Kendall will fight against the latter copy of himself until his dying breath.  
  
That is what he thinks.  
  
That is why he decides to keep believing in James, even though it’s the most idiotic decision he’s ever made.  
  
Besides, isn’t suffering like, the human condition or something? Kendall’s positive he read that somewhere. He decides that he will suffer through this. What exists between him and James is static, sometimes a white noise that pulls them both in, sometimes meaningless fuzz that Kendall can’t make sense of, but through it all, Kendall decides he will perfect a smile that gives nothing away.  
  
And it’s going really great- really spectacularly less than great, actually, because Kendall’s conscience is a chatty little thing- when Logan confronts him.  
  
He sort of knew it was coming, saw the razor sharp glares Logan directed straight at him for weeks on end. One day Kendall accidentally uses Logan’s physics text as a coaster, and the next thing he knows, he’s got the kid up in his face, screaming. He storms into Kendall’s room, thunderclouds and brimstone. He calls Kendall names, tells him he’s reckless and stupid and doesn’t know how to respect other people’s property.  
  
It isn’t really about the text book. They both know that.  
  
And Kendall accepts it, because he also knows what it’s like to be hurt and alone and unhappy. He doesn’t enjoy the process, inwardly wincing through his martyr act, but he doesn’t put a stop to it, either. He lets Logan run out of steam, and then he tries to soothe him. All the while Kendall’s thinking it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s _okay_. He’s fine being the bad guy, as long as he has James.  
  
“You’re not going to get away with this.” Logan says, at the end. “I won’t let you.”  
  
Kendall bites the inside of his cheek, keeps himself from saying all the nasty words that bubble inside of him, slick like bile in his throat. He stares at the shiny silver doorknob of his room and wills Logan to go away, before something breaks between them that Kendall won’t be able to fix.  
  
It’s not like he and Logan have never fought before. They’ve spent years in close quarters with too much testosterone. They bicker on a regular basis. But this is different. This matters.  
  
Kendall feels black and blue inside.  
  
Logan smiles at him, his incisors sharp as shark’s teeth. It is feral, not friendly. He says the first honest thing in the whole damn fight. “You don’t even deserve James. If you loved him-“  
  
“Stop!” Kendall bursts, holds up a hand, tries to keep it from bunching into a fist. “You don’t know anything about how I feel, so just. _Stop_.”  
  
“I know that you’re a dick,” Logan retorts.  
  
It’s like he can’t see how Kendall feels this conversation like a physical blow, how every vicious word trembles through his body and pierces him like an arrow. Kendall keeps ramrod straight, tries to remember that this is one of his _best friends_. Carefully, he replies, “You’re reading this situation completely wrong.”  
  
“Yeah?” Logan sneers, and he looks like he’d rather like to punch Kendall repeatedly in the mouth. He mutters, “Then why don’t you explain it to me? You’re _using_ James.”  
  
Kendall doesn’t know how to say that it’s the other way around, doesn’t know how to say that he would _never_ , that sometimes James feels like the only reason he has the strength to keep his head up and keep going. It would be so easy to tell the truth, to force Logan to carry this ridiculous weight with him.  
  
But.  
  
That’s not fair. Kendall doesn’t want Logan’s pity, and he doesn’t want Logan to agonize over this any more than he already is. It’s not like Kendall is the only person James is fucking. He’s walked in on more than one of James’s trysts with girls and boys alike. But Kendall is the one who gets the brunt of Logan’s anger, and he accepts that.  
  
It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it.  
  
Kendall will take all the blame, if he has to, if it keeps everyone together. He tries to launch into an inspirational speech, one of those things he’s supposedly so fucking good at. He tries to comfort Logan.  
  
It doesn’t work. He storms right back out of the room with all his lightning and thunder and gunmetal demeanor. Right before the door swings shut, he gives Kendall this look, this dagger glare that Kendall recognizes from countless hockey games and science fairs.  
  
It means the competition’s on.  
  
It means that Logan is going to try to take James away, for real.  
  
Kendall flinches. To the empty room, he whispers, “Please don’t.”  
  
Because Logan can.  
  
Logan will.  
  
And even if Kendall tries to fight, there is nothing he can do to stop it.

\---

  
 **20.**  
  
Carlos senses it the second things change. Logan begins acting happier, smugger, and the line of Kendall’s shoulders turns rigid.  
  
One day they’re at the studio, on break. Kendall is fooling around with one of Gustavo’s guitars, strumming up a song that sounds sweet, like maybe it could be something. Then Logan saunters by, pulling James by the hand, and the pretty notes change. The guitar cries beneath Kendall’s fingers, shrieks with pain, but Kendall does not. His face is stone. He begins humming, forming lyrics and channeling them into the angry song, and Carlos thinks of that time when they were kids, when he stood by Kendall’s side at the lake. Lately, he can’t fight the idea that every time Kendall wants to scream, now, he sings. That’s all he can ever do, keep singing, keep shaping every feeling, every spark of hatred and lust and love and a thousand other fleeting emotions that scramble for his attention into a song, into words that take on a life of their own.  
  
He has nothing else.  
  
He has no one else.  
  
Except Carlos.  
  
Carlos, who doesn’t let it stand this time. He says, “You need to stop whatever it is you’re doing.”  
  
Kendall perks up, cocking his head like a dog. “Why?”  
  
“Because James doesn’t want you.”  
  
Kendall cringes away from the words. He folds his head into his lap, into the safety of the guitar, and says, “I know.”  
  
“So why? Why do you keep forgiving him? It’s _pathetic_ ,” Carlos spits the word.  
  
“You think I don’t know that?” Kendall shoves his hands through his hair, fingernails digging into his scalp. “Fuck. I don’t want this.”  
  
“So walk away.”  
  
“I can’t.”  
  
“What do you mean, you can’t. Kendall, you’re the strongest person I know-“  
  
“I’m not! I’m not strong, okay? If I was strong, I _could_ walk away from this. But…it’s James, and I love him, and I can’t. And I know it’s pathetic, but I don’t care.” Kendall squeezes his eyes shut. “I want him, okay? For a long time now, Carlos. All I’ve wanted is him.”  
  
Carlos feels tired. “He’s all Logan’s wanted for longer.”  
  
“Logan gets everything,” Kendall says quietly, and it sounds like there’s some kind of history there, something that’s happened that Carlos doesn’t know about.  
  
“So put a stop to it. You’re Kendall Knight. If you want James, you can take him.”  
  
Kendall’s eyes crinkle at the corners, half laughter, half pain. “I could try. But what kind of friend would that make me?”  
  
“James would get over it.”  
  
“Logan wouldn’t. He holds a good grudge.”  
  
Incredulous, Carlos demands, “You’re actually worried about him?”  
  
“I hate him.” Kendall says evenly. “But. He’s my friend. Of course I’m worried about him.”  
  
“Worry about yourself!”  
  
“You don’t think I am?”  
  
“I know you’re not. If you don’t hate Logan with everything you’ve got, you’re not worried about yourself.”  
  
“How do you know that?”  
  
Carlos doesn’t know what to say. That he hates James? It would be true.  
  
Saying so out loud would be pretty effed up, though.  
  
“Look. I’m sorry,” Kendall says, his voice soft. “I’m sorry that we’re fucking everything up.”  
  
Carlos frowns. He reaches across the space between them and smacks the back of Kendall’s hand. “Don’t apologize for being in love, dumbass.”  
  
He lets Kendall go back to his song, but inside he thinks that this is worse than he first thought.  
  
This is how love will wreck a dynasty; piece by piece, until they are scattered in the wind.  
  
In the end days, all that will connect the four of them is how much they despise each other.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We don’t have secrets,” James says, pressing his lips to the jut of Kendall’s hips. He peers up at him, pupils glowing red as garnets in the last shreds of sunset. He is crafted of shadow and light.
> 
> From this angle, his spine curls in on itself like a spiral of ammonite.

**21.**  
  
They are playing a game of who needs who more, and Kendall is losing. Badly.  
  
He does his best to pretend it’s not happening. He can be perfect, if he tries harder. He can be exactly what everybody needs. A best friend. A son. A brother. A popstar. A leader. He tries and he tries and he tries.  
  
He has no clue if he’s succeeding. Never once does anyone thank Kendall for his efforts. They presume that it comes naturally to him, like these are traits written into the makeup of his genes and not active choices that get harder with every day that goes by.  
  
Kendall won’t ever say different, because this too is something that the people he surrounds himself with need; someone to believe in.  
Someone unshakeable. He will be that person because it is so much easier than being the scared, lonely little boy that lives inside his head.  
  
And that person? He can’t keep lying to everyone.  
  
Kendall tells Jo on a night when the Milky Way dapples the sky, “I fucked up.”  
  
She deserves better. She’s destined for such great things that it makes Kendall dizzy thinking about it, about red carpets and the sweet tilt of her smile. He hates what he’s done to her; he always has. Wanting to be loved isn’t worth the guilt that’s infested his soul, not when she is this brilliant, shining thing that he is irrevocably damaging.  
  
(He hates the word _affair_. It makes cheating sound like it is some grand to-do, more like a party than pain.)  
  
Jo turns her big brown eyes on him, weary and more than a little wounded. The radio they’ve set up on their picnic blanket blares, crackles and wails. She answers, “I know.”  
  
Two words, that’s all, but they echo in the air with cacophonous finality. That is so _not_ what Kendall is expecting to hear.  
  
“You…know?”  
  
Rueful, she kneads her fingers into the plaid picnic blanket, catching clumps of grass through the fabric. “About you and James? I always knew. I’ve been waiting to see how long it would take you to tell me.”  
  
Kendall bites down, tastes copper in his throat. He is drowning, he cannot reach air, and he has no idea how to stop it.  
  
“So then why-“  
  
“I told you I didn’t want a boyfriend.” Jo doesn’t smile. Her acceptance is not forgiveness. “You were never going to be permanent.”  
  
He can’t think of what to say, because there is no nice way to tell a girl that _using_ her wasn’t actually his grand plan. She made him feel alive when he sorely needed it, gave him value when he had none, and none of that makes him any less of an asshole. “I didn’t mean for it to go this way.”  
  
Jo shrugs one shoulder, her golden curls tumbling back against plaid. She averts her eyes to the sky. “You want to talk about it?”  
  
“Seriously?”  
  
She punches his shoulder. She does not pull her strength.  
  
“No. Not seriously. I hate this. I like you. You weren’t supposed to make me like you.” Jo’s voice falters. She wears sorrow like a veil. “Why James?”  
  
It doesn’t sound like a question he’s supposed to answer. Kendall does it anyway. Carefully, he enunciates, “In the beginning, after the first time, it was fun. We were happy, I think. Or…I don’t know, maybe that was just me. But I thought we were happy, and. I don’t know where it all soured.”  
  
Jo says, “I’m sorry you’re so miserable.”  
  
Then she hits him again, for good measure. She doesn’t aim for his arm this time.  
  
It’s better this way, black eye and all. Messy and sad, but better. It’s a lie that Kendall no longer has to live. Once it’s over, he doesn’t let anybody know that they’re through, doesn’t tell anyone anything because he doesn’t want to ask for help. He occupies himself with other things, with the Palmwoods and the way life gets so crazy.  
  
He’s got screaming fans and archenemies and insane record producers to contend with. When everything gets too quiet, the way it always does when he wants it to go fastfastfaster, Kendall spends more time with Katie. With his mom.  
  
With Carlos.  
  
That last one can be hard. Sometimes, he will see something he doesn’t expect flicker across Carlos’s face, an emotion he can’t identify.  
Kendall decides it must be pity and he’s ashamed. He tries not to look so closely. But between Jo and Carlos, he’s inspired to regain control.  
Kendall forbids himself from continuing this farce of a relationship with James any longer.  
  
He _forbids_ it.  
  
That works for about as long as it takes him to figure out that the sex is even hotter because it’s forbidden.  
  
On a Thursday afternoon, he sits in a car kissing James, nothing more. He likes it like this, when it’s just the two of them, quiet seconds on end and a snatch of serenity. The rise and fall of James’s chest and the crash of nearby waves and the relentless cars overhead weave a lullaby. It’s a perfect snow globe of peace that Kendall wants to cup in his hands and hold close, forever.  
  
He thinks he could tell the truth here, now, away from all the pressure of home and his friends and the history they’ve built up between them. “I want you,” he says, and James smiles slyly, unbuttons his jeans and shimmies them down his hips.  
  
Only, that’s not what Kendall means. But it doesn’t matter. The moment is gone.  
  
James slides Kendall’s t-shirt over his head, hands tan against the pale jut of Kendall’s ribcage. He flicks his fingers against the pink-brown of Kendall’s nipples, sucks one between his lips to graze over it with his teeth. Kendall’s entire body reverberates with the flick of James’s tongue, tremors like a chord fingered over on a guitar; James plays him the same way. He knows exactly what he has to do to make Kendall fall apart.  
  
James’s eyes are shiny brown matte in the too bright sun, glossy and smooth as a wet pebble. His mouth tastes like the spice of the peppers he just ate, burning hot against Kendall’s lips when he deigns to catch them again. Kendall groans and growls.  
  
There is an animal living inside of his chest. It has teeth and claws. It wants to rip James apart every time he gets too close.  
  
His hands palm over Kendall’s ass and he says, “You’ll let me, right?”  
  
Like saying no to James is even a thing Kendall remembers how to do anymore.  
  
There, amidst the smell of burgers, beneath heavy concrete and the thunder of cars roaring across the overpass, James gathers Kendall in his lap and fucks him senseless. It’s broad daylight, they’ve got their jeans rucked down around their thighs, and anyone could look in. A stray paparazzo wouldn’t have any trouble at all taking a picture that would end everything, but neither of them care. All that exists is the rattle of tires and the rasp of their breath and the way that sunlight turns them both to gold.  
  
“James,” Kendall whimpers when James hits him just right. He rakes his fingernails over sweat-slick skin, tries to get closer, needs to get closer. Even once it’s over, Kendall can feel James’s fingers still, wrapped around his heart, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing.  
  
Afterwards they munch on fries and talk about all kinds of things, the new song James wants to write, Kendall’s dad possibly flying out for a visit a few months from now. James narrows his eyes and through a mouthful of potato demands, “Are you okay with that?”  
  
“I don’t have a choice.”  
  
James squeezes his shoulders and throws out a smile, big and cheerful and worried as hell. “I’ll be here.”  
  
Kendall leans into his touch, searching for a way to ask if he means it.  
  
He never finds one. The subject changes to an interview the day before, where they were told how amazing they were, and that’s when it hits him. The accolades of other people mean nothing if Kendall’s not happy with what he’s doing.  
  
And Jo’s right; Kendall is really, really, really unhappy.

  
\---

  
**22.**  
  
Nowadays, Carlos hates being in 2J. Like school on the graduation day or a bar after last call, everyone is there but no one is really present.  
  
He wishes he was like Logan, who follows his head when the rest of them follow their hearts, but Carlos cannot separate the tangled web of what he feels. He cannot exist without wanting to strangle his best friends. He _breaks_ , time and again.  
  
“It must be nice to be the casual observer in all of this,” James says over a sandwich, munching away with careless, sloppy cow lips.  
  
Carlos can’t imagine ever wanting James’s mouth to touch him, can’t figure out why this single boy has managed to breed civil war into their happy-go-lucky lives. He grits out, “Yeah. _Nice_.”  
  
And then he tries really hard not to smash James’s pretty, selfish face. He heads to Kendall instead, tells him, “I thought you were going to do something.”  
  
Kendall is sulking into his pillows under the guise of taking a nap. Carlos invented that maneuver, back when they were kids and he didn’t want to go to school. He is unfooled.  
  
Kendall’s golden head shifts. “I don’t want to talk about it.”  
  
Carlos stomps his foots, because it helps, and because he can. “Dude, I get that, but you can’t not talk about it. You’re imploding.”  
  
“That’s my business,” Kendall moans, clutching his pillow tighter. He doesn’t see the way Carlos’s face falls.  
  
Rather pitifully, Carlos inquires, “Since when has anything you do ever not been my business?” He does not wait for an answer. It’s since James, of course. Carlos doesn’t even need to hear it said out loud. “Just stop already.”  
  
“I told you, I can’t,” Kendall spits mournfully, rolling onto his back. “I’m a total joke.”  
  
“No one thinks that.”  
  
“Oh yeah? What does everyone think.”  
  
“That you’re sad. Because you are. I can tell. Katie can tell. Your mom can tell. If you’d stop being angry all the time, James and Logan would be able to tell, and then-“  
  
“Then what?” Kendall demands, lifting his head. His hair is in total disarray, spun gold going in every which direction. “Then they’d know that I’m sad. And pathetic. And a joke,” he tacks on annoyingly.  
  
“You don’t get to be a coward. Not right now. Not when you’ve spent your whole life being brave. You’re strong, Kendall. Be strong.”  
  
“Being strong sucks.” Kendall says dully, dropping back to his pillow. He’s staring out the window of their apartment, hollow-eyed as he watches the sun shine. He is such a world-class sulker.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I mean…no one’s strong because they choose to be, Carlos. You do it because you have to. Because you have no choice. I’d rather be weak and loved than strong and abandoned any day, okay?”  
  
Carlos is so over this. It’s like these lights in his life keep going out, with nothing new moving to replace them. Is this how it’s supposed to work? Everyone lined up like birthday cake candles, extinguished one by one until there’s nothing but darkness? He doesn’t want to see the dead surrender in Kendall’s eyes. He’s not going to take that.  
  
His stomach flips with angry, buzzing hornets. They sting at his throat and they numb his gut. He tells Kendall, “Dude, no one’s abandoning you. Man the fuck up.”  
  
He slams the door behind him, the loud echo of wood and plaster screaming all these things he can’t.

  
\---

  
**23.**  
  
Logan’s picking a fight with him. Again. Over _cerea_ l. He wants Lucky Charms and all that’s left are Honey O’s, and somehow it’s Kendall’s fault that no one thought to pick up another box.  
  
Which, whatever, everything’s Kendall’s fault these days. He doesn’t rise to the bait, because at this point bickering with Logan about stupid shit is becoming a routine. They can’t even function together in the studio, and no matter how much Kendall tries to just make them work again, it’s like jamming a square into a circle shaped slot. They’re cracked where they used to be whole, and Kendall has no idea how to fix them without letting go of the one thing that will break him.  
  
So he listens to Logan bitch, munching on the last of the Lucky Charms, when Logan says, almost like a joke, “Maybe we should just sleep together. I’ll have nailed all of you, and you’ll have gotten that stick out of your ass.”  
  
“Dude, seriously-“ Kendall begins, grossed out in an utterly visceral way, because Logan-dick needs to be nowhere near his. Then the implications of what’s been said hit him. He nearly chokes on it, rage that is bigger than anything he’s ever experienced before, so much that he can’t keep it in. “You’ll have what?”  
  
“You heard me,” Logan says, and his voice has gone totally flat. He’s got his _miscalculation-holy-fuck-huge-miscalculation_ face on, spoon hovering in the air, but he is not backing down. The days where he used to worship the ground Kendall walked on are long, long gone.  
  
What he’s saying is completely impossible.  
  
“I heard you _lie_ ,” Kendall manages, folding his arms over his belly to keep all his vital organs from spilling on the floor. Words aren’t supposed to cut like knives, so how come more often than not, they do?  
  
Logan’s ears burn red. “I’m not lying, ass fuck.”  
  
“Right, I totally believe that you-“ Kendall can’t even say it, his stomach churning sick. He bites down on his lip. Draws blood. Bites harder. The illness and anger still make their way out, vicious words fleeing his mouth before he can clamp them down. “I can’t believe you’re making this up, just because you want James. If James wanted you, he’d take you, okay? But I gave him this.” He gestures around the kitchen and hates the arrogance in his own voice. He may have enabled James’s success, but a record deal and a shiny crib don’t entitle Kendall to anything.  
He _knows_ that. He does. “I gave up everything, for him. What the fuck have you done?”  
  
A muscle in Logan’s jaw spasms. A vein in his jugular throbs.  
  
“Not enough, probably.” He takes a bite of his cereal, munches for a few beats, and then says steadily, “I would never lie to you.”  
  
The implication is there, clear as day. _How can you think I would_?  
  
But Kendall no longer cares about the edge of kicked-puppy that lurks in Logan’s gaze every time their eyes meet. He’s got a hell of a lot of violent scenarios involving Logan and blood cycling through his head right now; he wants to break the juice carafe over his skull or bash his head into the TV. Why is it that fucking know-it-all Mitchell keeps getting to partake in everything that Kendall’s worked so damn hard for?  
  
It all comes so easy for him. Carlos didn’t shove him away and say _it’s gross_.  
  
Kendall squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe. One exhalation, and then the next, and then there is a hand soft against his shoulder, scared to touch.  
  
Logan asks tentatively, “Are you okay?”  
  
Miserably, Kendall replies, “None of this is okay.”  
  
He finds Carlos by the pool, kicking his feet in the water. It’s the first place Kendall thought to check, because it’s where Carlos always is these days. He doesn’t do tension or awkwardness, and that’s pretty much the status quo in the crib twenty four seven. Kendall doesn’t blame him.  
  
He slips out of his shoes and settles down beside Carlos. His toes slip through Caribbean blue, rippling out to touch the kids splashing and screaming, the girls floating on their backs and the boys threatening to topple them with a well-placed wave. Lightning The TV Wonder Dog paddles laps through the center of the pool. Kendall watches him swim, his tail wagging happily. He says, “Hey. I was thinking. It’s been a while since we worked on the whole girlfriend thing.”  
  
Carlos makes a noncommittal noise, shoulders slumped. Kendall frowns.  
  
“I thought you were really desperate for experience.”  
  
“I’m not as inexperienced as you think,” Carlos replies darkly, refusing to meet Kendall’s eyes. “I’ve done stuff.”  
  
“Oh yeah?” Kendall cocks his eyebrow and nudges their sun-warm knees together. He tries not to let on that this is the exact information he’s been digging for. “With who?”  
  
Carlos grimaces, separating their wet skin, shrinking into himself. It’s such an un-Carlos thing to do, eerily reminiscent of him and Logan only an hour or so before, and Kendall has to wonder. When did they all get so scared to touch each other?  
  
“None of your business,” he blurts, squeezing his eyes shut, like he doesn’t want to see if Kendall is upset.  
  
Kendall _is_ upset, because Carlos tells him everything, or at least that’s what he always thought. But he remembers Carlos begging him to talk things out, just a few nights – or was it a month? – ago. Turnabout is very fair play, and everything is changing faster than any of them can keep track of, these days.  
  
“Fine. Just, Logan said-“  
  
“Logan said what?” Carlos’s entire body has gone tense, alert. Kendall’s stomach bottoms out in his chest.  
  
 _You’re not supposed to kiss other boys_ , Carlos said. _It’s gross_. If what he’d meant was _kissing you is gross_ , why hadn’t he just said so?  
Kendall wants to lash out at little kids that don’t even exist anymore, for being naïve, for trusting, for thinking that true love was a thing that happens when people grow up.  
  
“It’s true then.”  
  
Something about his expression makes Carlos hesitate, even his feet in the water stilling their course. “It wasn’t a big deal. I asked him to.”  
  
“You…what?” Kendall demands, his voice ringing foreign in the air. He swallows against the lump in his throat. He doesn’t get to feel like this.  
He _can’t_ feel like this. Not on top of everything else.  
  
“Don’t look at me like that. We were fifteen. It was ages ago.”  
  
Somehow, that doesn’t alleviate the thing that sits a lot like betrayal somewhere just left of Kendall’s heart. His mind flashes with lightning, Logan and James outlined by a storm. James’s face turns to Carlos and _no_. He huffs in a breath, another, trying to figure out when everything got so fucked.  
  
Tentative, Carlos ventures, “Kendall?”  
  
His eyes are smoky topaz, clouded with worry. Kendall is an utter cad.  
  
“It’s fine. Bit my tongue,” he says, trying to explain his sense of wrongness away. He doesn’t want to make Carlos sad. He doesn’t ever want Carlos to worry about him. He’s _fine_.  
  
Kendall hasn’t actually been fine since that day at the military base when he was six years old, but it’s much, much too late to stop pretending.  
  
Carlos pulls an unpleasant grin that has too many pearly-white teeth and asks, “Why do you care?”  
  
The angle at which the sun hits the water sets it sparkling, dazzling bright as a photo-flash. Kendall wavers physically, his heart stopping, his veins constricting. A hot blush works across his face and he mumbles, “I don’t want you to get hurt.”  
  
Carlos gives him the strangest look then, something confident but bewildered. “Logan wouldn’t hurt me.” When Kendall doesn’t reply, fury simmering beneath his skin, Carlos kicks his feet in the water again, splashing them both. He says, “Okay, I told you to hate him, but he wouldn’t hurt me. Tell me you know that.”  
  
Mechanically, Kendall says, “I know he wouldn’t do it on purpose. I’m not stupid.”  
  
“You’ve been acting pretty idiotic.”  
  
Kendall slumps back, hot concrete burning his palm. He stares straight into the sun, because the blinding light makes everything else disappear, dances black spots in front of his eyes and reminds him this isn’t all there is.  
  
“Let’s do something fun. You and me.”  
  
Carlos relaxes, the smile that springs to his lips genuine. “You want to?”  
  
Kendall wants a lot of things. Getting his best friends back is at the top of the list. He can’t do anything about James; that battle feels like it will never be done. And Carlos was wrong about hating Logan. Kendall doesn’t want to, even if it’s easy. Zeroing all his anger in that direction isn’t helping anything, other than the jealousy infecting every inch of him. Not that Logan will care if Kendall’s taking the high road.  
  
The only person he can make things right with at this exact moment is Carlos, who is eternally in Kendall’s corner, even when Kendall is being a little bitch. Carlos, whose smile takes his breath away.  
  
Carlos, who might not want him the way Kendall wishes he did, but is still one of his best friends in the entire world.  
  
Kendall swallows down the knot in his throat. “Yeah. I want to.”

  
\---

  
**24.**  
  
“We should write a song.”  
  
Carlos freezes, his hands hovering over his wallet and his keys.  
  
Kendall’s standing right outside James and Carlos’s door, fisting his fingers into the knees of his jeans, more awkward and uncomfortable than he ever usually is. James really does a number on him, Carlos thinks piteously.  
  
“You should write a song with Logan,” Kendall decides, in a move that appears to shock him most of all.  
  
James exhales softly. “He doesn’t…it’s not the same.”  
  
“What does that mean?”  
  
Carlos watches as James presses a hand to the center of Kendall’s chest and says, “You feel it. You feel it, here, when Logan doesn’t know how.”  
  
Something bright flares to life in Kendall’s eyes.  
  
It’s not fair. James uses pretty words to ply him like this over and over again, but they’re never true. Hope is a single note of music. Hope is poison.  
  
Carlos walks out into the hallway and asks, “Are you ready to go?”  
  
“Where are you going?” James examines them both up and down, trying to glean a location from their posture and clothes. He comes up blank.  
  
Kendall shrugs and glances away. Carlos pastes on an empty grin.  
  
“Oh-kay,” James says slowly, backing away. In the dark of the hall, his eyes gleam black like apache tears. Kendall’s are just the same, molten as hematite and glistening suspiciously, but James can’t see that. He doesn’t bother looking. “I guess I’ll…find Logan.”  
  
Carlos does not miss the way Kendall winces. He watches James back away and murmurs, “Why did you do that?”  
  
Kendall shrugs again. “Let’s go, Carlitos.”  
  
He meanders out the door and Carlos watches his ass, the easy lines of his posture. Kendall can pitch a bitch-fit like nobody’s business, but when he makes up his mind about something, he’s…hot. Really, really hot.  
  
Carlos wants to know what it’s like to fuck him. Of course he does. He’s only ever been with Logan. Which Kendall knows now. He knows and it pissed him off, although Carlos can’t for the life of him figure out why. He wants to ask again, but the whole dynamic of their friendship has changed so much since coming to Hollywood. He’s not sure how many of Kendall’s buttons he can push before he snaps.  
  
One day, Carlos is going to have to peel layer upon layer from Kendall’s skin to see if there is someone underneath, if there is a brand new boy hiding inside of him or just an empty shell, the husk of what James has left behind.  
  
Kendall pauses in the hall, cranes his head so that the fluorescent lights highlight him in orange-gold. He calls, “Are you coming?”  
  
Carlos trips over himself to follow.  
  
In the elevator, they run into Jett Stetson, who takes a single look at them both and asks, “Are we angsting?” Jett pins on his most serious face. “I’m a spectacular angster. I won a Razzie for angsting.”  
  
“I…don’t think that means you’re, er, good at it,” Carlos tells him, never quite sure what to do with himself when Jett’s around.  
  
Jett brays with laughter. “I’m good at everything.”  
  
Kendall says, “It doesn’t matter. There’s no angsting here.”  
  
“There’s not?” Carlos asks dubiously.  
  
Kendall pins him with the heat in his quicksilver eyes, fondness playing across his lips. He says, “I told you. We’re going to have fun.”  
  
Carlos knows it’s naïve to be the boy who hopes _endlessly_. He doesn’t know how long he’ll last if he keeps holding onto this crazy, reckless yearning. But when Kendall stares at him like that, he can’t keep it from festering.  
  
Hope is poison.

  
\---

  
**25.**  
  
James comes to him in the night and asks, “Where did you go today?”  
  
Kendall grins, thinking back on it. “It’s a secret.”  
  
“We don’t have secrets,” James says, pressing his lips to the jut of Kendall’s hips. He peers up at him, pupils glowing red as garnets in the last shreds of sunset. He is crafted of shadow and light.  
  
From this angle, his spine curls in on itself like a spiral of ammonite.  
  
James takes Kendall on his bed, pressed up against Kendall’s headboard, hot and thick and hard when he floods Kendall with come. Kendall isn’t finished, isn’t even close to sated, and his fingers scrabble against the wood and the wall because he’s got James’s hands on his dick, his pretty lips pressed against the rim of his asshole. James licks Kendall clean of every drop of himself, tongues inside him until he’s sobbing with it and James is ready to go again. They fuck slower this time, drawing it out until Kendall loses it across the threadcount of his pillows and the pump of James’s hips goes discordant.  
  
He shudders and cries out, bites the meat of Kendall’s shoulder so hard that it’s sure to be a permanent brand. Kendall sags back against him, rides him through it until they collapse backwards on the bed.  
  
James asks, “Will you tell me now?” and Kendall can’t remember what the question was until he murmurs into the sweat of his hairline, “How can you keep a secret from me?”  
  
Raggedly, Kendall replies, “All we have are secrets, James.”

  
\---

**26.**  
  
“When we’re old,” James begins, staring at the stars that stretch high above Hollywood. “Do you think people will remember us?”  
  
He doesn’t ask if they’ll all still be friends. He takes it for granted. He takes them all for granted, time and time again. It’s not just Kendall, not just Logan. It’s Carlos too. James is certain of them all, and he shouldn’t be.  
  
But no one tells him that.  
  
Carlos stares off into the dark shapes of birds of paradise and wonders what the point is of having best friends if all they do is make him feel lonely. It builds like a scream in his chest, but he swallows it down. “I dunno, man. I hope so.”  
  
James switches tacks all too easily. “You know, I could set you up with a girl.”  
  
He’s completely oblivious to everything ever. He misses the way Kendall’s hands clench into fists, the thinness of Logan’s lips, the crackle of the fire chipping away at the seconds on end Carlos takes to answer.  
  
James Diamond is the last person in the entire world that he will ever want relationship advice from. And yet, he can’t say it that way, sword-sharp and poised to wound. For all that James is an utter douchebag, he is still Carlos’s friend.  
  
“I think I’m good, thanks.”  
  
“But-“  
  
“He said he’s good,” Kendall provides helpfully, thumping his sneaker against James’s. That turns into an impromptu game of footsie not-so-cleverly disguised as kicking the shit out of each other.  
  
Abruptly, Logan says, “I think I’m going to call it a night.”  
  
James jumps to his feet, and, sparing a guilty glance towards Logan’s retreating back, asks, “Kendall, you coming?”  
  
Just out of James’s line of sight, Carlos mouths, _don’t go_.  
  
He is asking, begging, pleading with his eyes. And he almost wins. He can see it, blessed indecision, wavering in Kendall’s gaze. He glances from James to Carlos and back again, and _yes_ , Carlos thinks with all his might, _listen to me_.  
  
Then the set of Kendall’s shoulders solidifies, turns stiff and unyielding, and it turns out it isn’t a victory after all. Kendall clambers up and follows James, the night a little bleaker for his absence.  
  
Carlos remembers when he was younger; his dad’s country songs and his mom’s telenovelas. Somewhere along the line, he got this idea that being brokenhearted was tragically romantic. Now he has to wonder if he orchestrated this, somehow. If he took his big brother’s advice about suffering and maneuvered himself into a position where there was no chance at all that his heart would ever stay whole.  
  
No matter what Carlos does, Kendall won’t ever listen to him. Even as his insides are ripped raw, a gaping wound, Kendall won’t even try to do anything about it, so why should Carlos? This all passed the thin line between devoted friendship and torturing himself a long time ago.  
  
The next morning, he goes to James. “About that girl…?”  
  
He gets ready for his date thinking that if he could do it all again, he’d go back. He’d tell himself the most important thing he’s learned; that being brokenhearted feels exactly like having no heart at all.

  
\---

**27.**  
  
The problem with loyalty is that it is impossible to give up.  
  
Kendall’s stuck in one big endless repeat episode of no-one-wants-you, where he is always second best. When Carlos and some new girl of the week start dating, even though it’s only for a handful of days, he wants to put his fist through a wall. It’s one more emotion in a whole fondue pot full of them that Kendall tries not to examine.  
  
He’s full to the brim. Kendall is supposed to be the boy who believes when no one else will, but people are so immensely flawed. Once you see that, is there any way to go back?  
  
He doesn’t think so. He has nineteen years of disappointment weighing on his shoulders, and maybe that’s why, eventually, he starts considering the impossible. Maybe that’s why, when his heart cracks and threatens to shatter, he lets it.  
  
Really, it was inevitable. It doesn’t matter what he has given up, or even what he feels. It doesn’t matter how great a person he is, how good a friend. Love exists or it doesn’t. James’s heart cannot be dictated by the way Kendall’s bleeds, no matter how unfair it is. So, for the first time in his entire life, Kendall Knight gives up. He throws loyalty straight into the wind.  
  
Kendall makes a backup plan, and waits.  
  
And waits.  
  
And waits.  
  
The day his answer arrives in the mail, he is trying to sing, trying to do a song the way that Gustavo wants it, but he can’t. His voice is a small thing, afraid to leave his body, and when he hits a high note his voice splinters, cracking like a sob. In seconds he’s got four sets of eyes on him, five if you include the sound mixer, and all are filled with concern.  
  
Kendall should say _dry throat_. Ask for water. Tell them he’s fine. But Kendall is not fine, and there’s not even a reason to keep up the sham anymore.  
  
James isn’t here today. He’s got the solos in this song. He doesn’t have to lay down his tracks until tomorrow. That makes it easier to say, “I can’t do this,” and he’s about to explain, about to make a scene and do what he should have done in the first place; crush poor, absent James’s dreams where they stand. He’s going to quit the band. He’s actually going to-  
  
Logan clears his throat, steps forward and says, “Actually, yeah, I wanted to talk to you guys. This is going to be our last album.” He proceeds to elaborate that he’s leaving for school, for the other end of the country, and in that moment he takes even this, Kendall’s last opportunity for dignity.  
  
“It’s what’s best for everyone,” Logan says at one point in his speech, sparing a furtive glance at Carlos. “We all want it.”  
  
Gustavo confronts Kendall later, once Kelly has chased Logan out of the studio with Carlos on their heels. He says, “I know something’s going on with you dogs. Logan wouldn’t just up and leave like that.”  
  
“You don’t know anything about what Logan would do,” Kendall retorts wearily. “And neither do I.”  
  
Gustavo is not even a little bit impressed. “Fix it.”  
  
“No.”  
  
Gustavo may be short-tempered, but he is also smart. For once in his life, he doesn’t argue. “Fine. Come work for me.”  
  
“What? I already work for you.”  
  
“Just you, this time. No James. No Carlos. No Logan. No pack, just the alpha.” Gustavo’s teeth gleam, the line of his mouth stern, but sincere.  
“On your own, you’ll be more famous than Big Time Rush ever could be.” He claps a hand on Kendall’s shoulder, more fatherly than Kendall’s dad and continues gruffly, “It’ll be good for you to be alone.”  
  
Kendall could take the offer. It would be so easy to make James suffer the same way that he does.  
  
But even if Kendall is spent inside, no longer a boy who believes in fairy tales or magic things, he’s not cruel. He doesn’t know how to be cruel.  
  
Kendall is more like his mother than he’s ever wanted to admit.  
  
“Give a record deal to James. He wants it so damn bad.”  
  
It’s the smallest comfort, to do something good, even if Gustavo will still make James work for it. Kendall needs good right now, because telling James what’s happened is going to be the worst thing he’s ever done; he can feel it in his bones. So this, yeah. This is necessary.  
  
This one last time, even if James will never know about it. It’s Kendall’s one last chance to play at being a hero.

  
\---

**28.**  
  
Logan is leaving, James is folding in on himself, and there’s nothing Kendall can do. Carlos isn’t even sure Kendall _wants_ to do anything. He’s back to sulking, in the form of packing his bags instead of hugging his pillows.  
  
“As your band’s manager, I’m going to have to ask you to stop being a fuck up.”  
  
“Who made you manager?” Kendall asks suspiciously, because Katie has this nasty habit of buying out people’s souls.  
  
Katie ignores him, talks over him. “Maybe if you’d just talk to Logan about it-“  
  
“Logan’s made up his mind,” he replies, steely. Carlos presses a palm to the hard muscle of Kendall’s lower back and glares at Katie. She means well, but she’s just a kid. She doesn’t get it.  
  
“Then talk to James.”  
  
Or maybe she does.  
  
Kendall pauses mid-fold to glower at his baby sister. “There’s nothing to talk about.”  
  
“Really? I heard you screaming at him all the way down the hall.”  
  
Carlos wasn’t here for that. He was too busy trying to calm Logan down, to convince him this was what everyone – except James – wanted.  
He’d known the med school announcement was coming. He’d also seen the acceptance letter Kendall got in the mail that day. When Logan came to him, asking advice, he’d known what to do.  
  
The future is here, knocking at their door. Carlos told Logan to embrace it.  
  
Now he tries to read the emotions that flick across Kendall’s features, too fast for him to read. What did he miss?  
  
“People say things they don’t mean all the time, Katie. You should know that.”  
  
“Kendall…James isn’t dad. I know that’s what it feels like, but…if you love him, you should tell him that.”  
  
Kendall is trembling beneath Carlos’s hand. He mumbles, “He still would have chosen Logan.”  
  
“Probably.” Katie shrugs, utterly practical. “But at least you would know that you’d tried.”  
  
“Don’t be cute,” Carlos tells her, because Kendall isn’t saying anything at all.  
  
“That’s physically impossible for me.” Kendall rolls his eyes. “Big brother?”  
  
Katie wraps her arms around Kendall’s waist, and she’s looking up at him with those big brown puppy dog eyes. Kendall makes an _mmm_ of acknowledgement, probably expecting to be hit up for cash for the umpteenth time.  
  
Instead he gets, “How much can you actually hate yourself?”  
  
It’s the last thing Carlos expects her to say. From the gobsmacked expression Kendall’s wearing, he’s a bit blindsided as well. But he doesn’t lie.  
  
“A lot. I hope you never find that out.” He tugs Katie up under his arm, ruffling her hair.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
Once she’s gone, Carlos tells him, “She’s right, you know.”  
  
“Katie’s rarely wrong.”  
  
“You should try.” It aches to say it out loud, but Carlos does it anyway. “You should tell James.”  
  
He doesn’t expect Kendall to agree with him; it’s not like Carlos hasn’t told him to fight at least ninety thousand times before. He’s used to being the Greek Chorus in this tragedy, but damnit, it’s not selfless; what Kendall’s doing. Giving James his record deal, running away.  
Surrendering him to Logan, if fate wants it that way. Outsiders might mistake it for some kind of martyrdom. But Carlos sees it for what it really is. Kendall’s punishing himself and even if Carlos wants this _done_ , he doesn’t want that.  
  
Kendall tilts his head down, and in the pale, gold lamplight, he looks raw, looks wrecked, looks beautiful; the way that broken things always do.  
Carlos waits for him to give the I-can’t song and dance he’s been spinning out for months.  
  
Kendall says, “I already did.”  
  
 _Oh_.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
Carlos is scared of the answer. What if James was overjoyed? Wait, no, Kendall’s still packing up. Which means that James…wasn’t.  
  
“James basically told me to fuck off.” Kendall tells his suitcase, because his clothes are so much more interesting than meeting Carlos’s gaze.  
“Maybe if I’d given in earlier. Maybe if I’d given up, earlier-“  
  
Carlos is going to kill James. He’s going to murder him in cold blood. “But then you wouldn’t be you. Dude, last I checked, surrender isn’t even in your vocabulary.”  
  
“It is now,” Kendall replies stonily. He returns to his packing with single minded determination. It’s…really freaky. He’s not freaking out. He’s not crying. He got shot down by the love of his life, and he’s doing exactly what Carlos told him to a few months back. He’s manning up, he’s soldiering on.  
  
It’s so fucking fake.  
  
“Don’t do this. Don’t pretend that you’re invincible.”  
  
Kendall flinches. He says, “You told me to be strong.”  
  
“Don’t shut me out,” Carlos’s voice comes out harsher than he means it to, louder too. “Don’t act you’re the only person who’s ever had their heart broken.”  
  
“I know that,” Kendall says, and he’s not even yelling back. What the hell is wrong with him? Kendall never turns down an opportunity to vent when he’s well and truly mad.  
  
Carlos is really freaked out. That’s how he accounts for it, later on, in his head. That’s why he grabs Kendall’s face firmly between his hands and kisses him soundly.  
  
Or as soundly as he can when it only lasts a second.  
  
“Carlos.” Kendall sets his hands on Carlos’s shoulders and pushes him back. He’s gentle. Too gentle. His face is a blank slate. “No. You don’t want to do this.”  
  
“How do you know?” Carlos demands, so angry and hurt.  
  
Kendall’s eyes are green as sea foam or a smoggy day, chrysoprase hooded by gold. Carlos can’t read anything in them, and it’s not right, because there should be something; surprise or betrayal or anything other than flat acceptance.  
  
Kendall says evenly, “I know, okay?”  
  
In that moment, Carlos stops remembering how to be mad anymore. He’s just…numb. He says, “You think you’re so fucking smart. But really you don’t know anything at all.”  
  
Kendall sucks his lower lip into his mouth, his mind probably already elsewhere. He picks up a shirt and starts piling it in a heap into his suitcase. He obviously doesn’t care that Carlos risked everything he thought he never would.  
  
Kendall’s too sad to give a fuck.

  
\---

**29.**  
  
He keeps waiting for James to stop him. Isn’t this the scene in the movies where the lover vaults security and there is this touching reconciliation? God, Kendall did that for Jo, just to say goodbye when she left for New Zealand. The lingering traces of their friendship meant that much to him, but Kendall thinks to James, he must not be worth it.  
  
The betrayal of James’s absence burns longer and harder than simple loss. Even though Kendall knew it was coming. This is the devolution in what they were; James has gone from chasing after him to make sure he’s always, always okay to not really caring either way.  
  
It makes Kendall want to yell and scream and lash out, but there’s no one left who cares enough to listen. Even Carlos watches him with guarded eyes, and it’s his own fault, yeah, Kendall is completely aware that all the blame is his, but he still wishes there was someone he could talk to.  
  
Only the things he wants to say make him feel sick and humiliated inside. No one wants to know about love once it’s turned to rot. He crosses his arms over his chest and shoulders his bag higher, chin up, neck straight. It seems right that he’s going home, unable to make it in the world, while James is out there, touching his dreams. Going home is going to suck, in a way, because when Kendall was sixteen, Minnesota was stifling. All he could think of was getting out, getting on a team, getting free of the humdrum of his hometown. But now it feels like the only place he might be able to breathe.  
  
Only, he gets to Minnesota and it’s not the refuge he remembers. Kendall thinks that he can taste James in the air, home on his tongue. He sits at the edge of the lake near his house and he does not scream, even though he wants to. If he starts, he thinks he might never be able to stop.  
  
He licks his lips and tastes Carlos too, because he kissed him, and Kendall screwed that up too. It should have made a difference when he’s been thinking about it for so long, but Kendall barely recognized the small offer of affection over the steady mantra in his head, of his last conversation with James.  
  
 _“Logan asked me if I loved you, and I had to tell him no because-“_  
  
 _“Because you don’t love me.”_  
  
Kendall stopped existing right then. He’s not sure he ever started again.  
  
The rotten salt stench of dead fish is carried on a fair breeze. He rests his head against the tree trunk and repeats, softly, a sob, a prayer, a wish, “Fuck.”  
  
Loss tastes like ash. It’s a tremor in his bones, a quake that devastates everything in its path. He doesn’t know how much of his relationship with James was real and how much of it was fiction, fantasy he spun from his own desires. And it cuts at him, because Kendall doesn’t like the idea that such a large part of his life was a lie.  
  
He sees James everywhere, in the silhouette of the mailman and the carefully arranged coiffeur of a local barista, in the long, callused fingers of a bartender and the dancing eyes of the kids who trample over him on the sidewalk when they run home from school. He hears in him in the hollering of the frat guys at his new university, in the crowds at the hockey games he goes to watch.  
  
Then he starts hearing him for real, on the radio, and that’s even worse. It pushes home the way that James has left a James-sized space in Kendall’s life, and no matter how Kendall tries to fill it, twisting puzzle pieces this way and that, hobbies and men and women and work, anything and everything to lessen the gap, he cannot. No one can fill the hollow.  
  
Distraction helps, but it doesn’t take away the pain. Everyone says it will dissipate eventually. Kendall doesn’t believe them. That day at the airport with his dad still hurts as fresh as it did when he was six, and he thinks that this, the idea of James, will still hurt when he’s sixty.  
  
He wonders if that’s normal, if everyone hurts like that inside and just lies about it, hiding beneath a happy façade like a Venetian mask, because faking it until you make it is the only way to survive the ache. He relives the betrayal in quiet moments, when the golden sun filters through his window in the middle of the afternoon, or when he’s hiding beneath the covers of his bed, remembering the tent-forts he and  
James used to build to create a space of their own. They would run out into the woods as kids and watch the sky, endless, endless blue.  
  
Now the sky is flat. Not endless. Just flat.  
  
And Kendall watches for hours.  
  
There are no stars to wish on, no pennies to throw or magic lamps to rub. He no longer dreams about the future. Kendall thinks he’s okay with this; being stuck in Minnesota, working at his university bookstore, studying for something that will never come. He can survive in a state of suspended animation, but nothing else. No one can ask him for anything else.  
  
When Kendall thinks back on the time that he spent together with James, it’s never this perfect, clear memory. It’s an image of his body, a splash of color against the sheets. It’s his hand, long-fingered, fisting against white fabric. It’s his voice. James said his name in a way nobody else has ever replicated.  
  
Months stumble past, and Kendall completely forgets what love felt like- shiny and new, like presents on Christmas day he thinks, when he deigns to think of it at all - and he isn’t sure he wants to remember. It seems like a thing that is forever tarnished in his head, blackened edges, a memory that has nothing at all to do with him.  
  
Kendall’s heart beat for James, but now James is gone. Does that mean his heart simply stops?  
  
Maybe not. Before, he thought the only thing he needed was James, but now he is greedy. He has to have his mother’s voice on the other end of the phone, replenishing his sapped strength. He needs to listen to Katie babble on about her latest scam, still a bubbly kid for all her attempts at adulthood. He needs hockey, the cold clarity of the ice, and he needs to watch the news so he can know that there’s other people out there with shit going on that’s way worse than his own. He needs laughter.  
  
He needs friends, too, but those are kind of in short supply right now. That Carlos continues to stand by him is a tiny little miracle, with what’s happened.  
  
The one thing Kendall does not need is love. He’s done with that. For good.  
  
Forever.


	4. Kiss Me At The Gate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kendall knows more now. He’s stronger. But he’s still Kendall. And he’s beginning to think that’s never going to change.

**30.**  
  
Carlos has grown up allowing his best friends to be strong for him. So now he can do this; he can be strong for them. Even when he resents everything they’ve done. Everything they’ve let happen. They were brave and proud and beautiful, and they let love break them into pieces.  
  
If Carlos allows himself, he will break too.  
  
It would be so easy to fall apart, with Kendall curled up in his arms. He’s crying, fucking finally, under the guise of being really super-sad that the unicorn princess is dying on screen. It’s subtle, honestly, the wetness against Carlos’s shoulder. He wouldn’t even notice it if he hadn’t been waitingwaiting, waiting forever for it.  
  
He tells Kendall quietly, “It’s okay.”  
  
Kendall doesn’t say anything, sniffling in a very stoic and manly fashion. It’s only once the credits are rolling that he manages, “It’s not. I could have said more, done more, _been_ more.”  
  
Carlos grapples with anger and agony, both aching through his chest. He wants to tell Kendall it wouldn’t have made a difference, because Carlos kissed him, Carlos _did_ , and Kendall blew _him_ off completely.  
  
That’s what trying gets you. Nothing.  
  
He’s been trying to make his life about hockey and music and the things he used to like before LA, but they are flavorless now that he’s been shot down by the only person he’s ever honestly wanted. Thanks to Carlos’s sucktastic timing, he is walking in ashes and struggling to pretend that his whole world hasn’t burned to the ground.  
  
Kendall must feel eight thousand times worse.  
  
The part of Carlos that is a good friend cringes. “You can’t think that way.”  
  
“But I can…I do.” Kendall is wretched, the admission taking something from him. “All the time.”  
  
He mumbles his words through his hands, but still. His voice is a sob, sadness turned to sound.  
  
“Could I have done something different.?” Kendall asks, “Could I have? Carlos? Could I?”  
  
There are things to say, so many things that people are supposed to say in situations like this, but none of them are the right things. When Carlos manages a trite, “It’ll get better,” that sounds wrong the moment it stumbles out of his mouth. “It’ll get better, I prom-“  
  
“ _Don’t_.” Kendall chokes out adamantly. “Promises don’t mean anything.”  
  
“Dude, don’t say that-“  
  
“You’re not listening.” Kendall looks at him, and for the first time ever, Carlos doesn’t recognize his best friend. How many times has Kendall been kicked when he was down, but managed to get back up again? Why is this time, _James_ , so very different?  
  
Carlos thinks of every moment back in Minnesota or the Palm Woods that he missed, all the song writing sessions and buddy bonding he wasn’t privy to. He wonders what solemn vows put the first cracks in Kendall’s heart, whether they came from James or a simpler place, a promise to love and honor that never made it past Kendall’s formative years.  
  
Kendall continues, “I wasn’t enough. I’m never enough, and that’s…I get it now.”  
  
Carlos curls his hands into his best friend’s hair and murmurs things like _no_ and _that’s not true_. But the problem is, it is true.  
  
In Kendall’s mind, he’s never measured up. It’s why he tries so hard. It’s why he breaks down, ready to throw in the towel, whenever he thinks he’s failed.  
  
His dad and James haven’t helped anything. Jerks.  
  
“Nothing matters, Carlos,” Kendall says, “I’ve tried- and I can’t make anything matter.”  
  
Carlos doesn’t take offense, or presume he falls into the category of _nothing_. He knows that Kendall means something pivotal inside himself has ceased to work, the same way he knows Kendall is lying when he pushes up off the couch and announces, “I didn’t mean that. Why are you letting me be so dramatic, dude?” He swipes his knuckles rough over his too-bright eyes, looking anywhere but Carlos. “I should- school  
work.”  
  
"You're allowed to be-"  
  
"What? I'm allowed to be what, exactly?" Kendall asks, trying too hard to be steely when all he can really manage is a pathetic shadow of strength. Except then he says, "Please don’t, okay."

"Don't what?"  
  
"Don’t treat me like a victim."  
  
 _Treat me like I’m still strong_ , is what Kendall obviously wants to say, because maybe then he can remember how to be. And so Carlos does. He lets Kendall pretend dying unicorns were what got him melancholy, but when Kendall tries to bounce off to his room, he tugs him back down onto the couch. They watch the DVD menu shower sparkles over the words _Play_ and _Special Features_ , Kendall resting his head against Carlos’s shoulder, Carlos mulling over if he’ll ever find a way to say what he needs to; that Kendall is enough for him.  
  
The assurance probably won’t be any kind of comfort, but Carlos wants to say it all the same.  
  
He strokes his hands through Kendall’s hair, and the two of them stare at the TV screen long after it goes blank.

\---

  
**31.**  
  
Becoming strong is a process.  
  
At first, it’s nothing more than one breath at a time. One foot in front of another. Getting out of bed when the daylight seems too bright and it  
feels easier to hide. This is how healing begins.  
  
It’s not fun or exciting or an adventure.  
  
It just is.  
  
The public display is the first to go. Kendall learns how to hide it in front of friends or family or random strangers at bus stops. He has to bury his face in pillows when he needs to let it all out and the very act makes him feel tragic about it all the while, but it’s better than the blatant humiliation of freaking out to a random stranger.  
  
Eventually, that part stops completely. The pain is still there, though, so the next step is smiling. All the time, fucking smiles. He pretends and he pretends and he pretends that he’s fine. He starts to convince everyone around him that he’s okay.  
  
Kendall’s not okay. Love isn’t the kind of thing you get over. Past, maybe, with enough time. But over?  
  
Never.  
  
It’s like a physical illness. It is achy bones and achy muscles and an achy brain, not to mention any other important internal organs. Kendall only drags himself up out of bed every day because not doing so isn’t an option.  
  
He isn’t going to punish his friends and family by acting like a depressed douchebag. He can’t be _that_ person, even if he feels a lot like it. He has to consciously choose, every day, to hide his broken heart. One step after another. One breath riding the tail end of the last.  
  
One choice one step one breath.  
  
That is how he makes it through the day. Even when it feels like the Earth is chained to his feet and the sky weighs heavy on his lungs and his mind is clouded with an entire ocean of self-hate, doubt, and worthlessness.  
  
He tries to call Logan, a few times. Dialing his number is one of the hardest things Kendall has ever done, but it doesn’t matter. Logan never takes his calls. Ass.  
  
(Kendall would judge Logan for it, except Kendall ignores James every time he calls, so.)  
  
One step.  
  
One breath.  
  
One turns into two turns into three, and walking and breathing and living gets a little easier. Not ever the same as it was before. Never as reckless or wonderful or simple. Just easier.  
  
There are days when he wants to make a very different choice than _moving on_. But he doesn’t. It’s not strength, it’s not bravery. It is simply this; a conscious decision not to give up.  
  
A conscious choice to survive.

  
\---

  
**32.**  
  
Their new situation is delightfully domestic, or it would be, if Kendall wasn’t a gigantic bag of mope-and-wallow.  
  
He has a good thing going with his hockey team. His job, not so much. It’s a long way to fall from stadium stages to book clerk. Regardless,  
Kendall handles it with quiet grace, used to hard work and suffering in silence. Suffering being the key word.  
  
Carlos does what he can to supplement their income, taking odd jobs where he can get them, but he’s working his own way slowly (so slowly) through a college curriculum. They’d both plump up their wallets with residual BTR royalties if they weren’t both funneling most of it back to their families.  
  
More than one Instant Ramen Evening, Carlos finds himself seething with envy at his long lost best friends, who’ve never had to provide for anyone other than themselves. But he’s sick of holding grudges, so the thoughts flee as quickly as they come.  
  
Gustavo calls on a monthly basis, under the guise of offering Kendall a job.  
  
Kendall won’t work at the same label as James, but Carlos doesn’t think the job offers are in earnest these days anyway. Gustavo’s a good man, beneath all his bluster. He wants to make sure Kendall is okay.  
  
Carlos would like to know that too, actually.  
  
He’s trying really hard not to let his best friend slash roommate slash the ultimate sadsack extraordinaire exist as the centerpiece to his life any longer. Carlos gives dating a try – for a given definition of dating – because college girls (and boys) are way more receptive to his _strange_ than high schoolers ever were. He makes new friends. He spends entire nights away from his apartment.  
  
Then he comes home and wonders why he bothered.  
  
The worst part isn’t that Kendall’s funk is contagious. It’s that even in the midst of it, Kendall remains the only person Carlos really wants to be around.  
  
So Carlos drags him out snowboarding, swimming, camping, and paintballing. He forces Kendall into movie theaters and restaurants, street fairs and frat parties. Forced normalcy turns into legitimate normalcy. In the middle of all that, it’s easy to forget everything. Right up until it isn’t.  
  
Carlos brings a girl home for the first time halfway through his second year of college. She’s his tutor, and she’s tipsy, but so is he, and when he kissed her she didn’t turn him down. He ends up between her legs, the muscles in her thighs tight at his hips, the heat at her core right there, a single lacy layer away.  
  
Carlos is older now, he’s fooled around, but his main source of experience is still mostly _Logan_. He’s definitely not past the point where he thinks sticking his hand down a girl’s panties is basically the most thrilling thing since the invention of corndogs.  
  
His fingertips brush against this crazy, damp heat, and-  
  
“Uh.”  
  
The sound is loud, unexpected, and definitely came from Kendall.  
  
In retrospect, the couch was not the best place to get the party started. Carlos falls ass-first on the floor, his date having shoved him away to grab for her jeans.  
  
He grumbles, “You’re home early.”  
  
“I can leave.” Kendall enunciates the way he only does when he’s flustered, loud and precise. “In fact, I am going to do that.”  
  
“No,” Carlos protests immediately.  
  
“ _No_?” His tutor demands, whipping her head around to glare at him.  
  
Oops.  
  
“I mean, yeah,” Carlos says, glancing back and forth between this pretty, pretty, half-naked girl and Kendall, who is staring at Carlos so  
inscrutably that Carlos isn’t sure what to make of it. More firmly, he tells Kendall, “You should…go.”  
  
He must not sound like he means it. Sighing, his tutor finishes adjusting her clothes and announces, “No, it’s alright. I’ve got an early lecture.”  
  
She has tiny ankles beneath the hem of her jeans. Carlos remembers them digging into his butt, and that’s about when he realizes he’s still in his boxers, sporting a boner that isn’t exactly waning beneath the steady intensity of Kendall’s gaze. He stutters out, “Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay,” and then clamps his mouth shut, unsure what to do with himself.  
  
Carlos’s date kisses him on the cheek, more bemused by the situation than anything else.  
  
Once the door swings shut behind her – and Carlos takes a minute to mourn the loss of the sexual encounter that never was – Kendall makes a face. “Man, I did not ever need to see that.”  
  
“Now you know how I used to feel,” Carlos replies mildly, crossing his legs and trying to hide the evidence.  
  
It helps not at all. Luckily, Kendall is too busy wincing. “Sorry.”  
  
“Why are you apologizing? It’s done. It’s over.”  
  
“Yeah. It is.” Kendall drops his hockey bag and meanders closer to the couch. “She seemed nice.”  
  
“She is nice,” Carlos agrees.  
  
Kendall is too close, looming over him with his shock of gold-blond hair and the penetrating green of his eyes. He’s got a hole in the knee of his jeans, a scrape peeking out red from behind frayed edges of denim.  
  
Carlos could press his mouth there, lick away the pain and work upwards. He could take Kendall in his mouth, feel his weight, taste his bitterness. He could suck him off in the middle of their living room, until Kendall got so desperate with it that he’d pin Carlos to the rug and – wait.  
  
No.  
  
He peers up at Kendall’s face, the black circles and pinched lines. He hears Kendall say, “Whoa there, partner. You okay down there on the range?”  
  
He can’t find his footing, drunker than he thought. Kendall’s smirk is annoying, and endearing, and the idea of kissing it off his face floats at the edge of Carlos’s awareness.  
  
Shaking it away, he announces, “I need help getting up.”  
  
Kendall continues to smirk down at him, but at least he extends a hand.  
  
His palm is warm, his fingers cool. He takes on Carlos’s weight as easily as he ever has.  
  
With the ground beneath his feet, Carlos has a better view of Kendall’s grin. He’s calmer now, in the downstairs department, but his skin stays feverish, burning up from the inside out. A cold shower and thoughts about his grandma are definitely in order, here.  
  
Kendall doesn’t move out of Carlos’s personal bubble, their hands linked. He asks, “Is she your girlfriend now?”  
  
“She might’ve been, if somebody wasn’t such a cockblock. Cockblock.”  
  
Carlos jabs Kendall with his free hand pointedly, distracting himself from how Kendall’s breath smells like winterfresh gum and soda pop.  
Standing was a terrible decision.  
  
Stupid sparkly green eyes dancing in a stupid and sparkly way, Kendall says, “Maybe next time you’ll try out your bedroom.”  
  
“Or maybe we should have a code,” Carlos retorts impetuously. “Sock on the door? Hockey jersey? Rubber duck?”  
  
Kendall snorts. “You’re not defiling an innocent rubber duckling just so you can sexile me.”  
  
“Hey, who says it’s going to be me? You can take advantage of the Fuck Duck too,” Carlos protests, even though Kendall’s made a habit of pursuing his few and far between conquests out of house.  
  
If Kendall were to bring somebody home, Carlos isn’t sure what he’d do, but the concept doesn’t fill him with ecstasy.  
  
Like he can read Carlos’s mind, Kendall steps in even closer, every exhale tickling Carlos’s ear. He murmurs, “There’s no one I want to bring here.”  
  
“Oh.” Carlos feels like he should have guessed that. Every time he thinks Kendall is healed, he turns around and realizes that he’s wrong.  
  
Kendall puts up a good front, a great front, even. He laughs and he moves and he perfects the art of acting happy, but it’s clear he’s not. That same night, Carlos dons his pajamas and brushes his teeth and thinks maybe he should talk to Kendall about…about anything. There’s a sick twist in his stomach, like when he’s done something wrong, but he hasn’t, and Kendall never implied he did, and none of it makes any sense  
at all.  
  
Only, this other time, after the girl, he finds Kendall in their shared living room, staring at a picture of the four of them.  
  
Carlos doesn’t think anything of it – he’s about to step into the room and say hi. Maybe reminisce. Then Kendall reaches out and touches the pictures, strokes his index finger over the frame, and Carlos doesn’t even have to see to know whose face Kendall is touching.  
  
In the middle of the empty room, Kendall breathes, “I’m so sick of missing you.”  
  
Carlos backs away. Awayawayaway.  
  
Who a person is cannot simply be the mistakes that they’ve made, but so often, he feels like the past is the only thing that makes them both real. For now, they are fake boys, boys in stasis, when only a short while ago they were boys who filled the world with noise.  
  
Kendall isn’t the only one who misses things. Carlos spends whole minutes debating retreat.   
  
But he doesn’t. He clears his throat and says, “Hey,” because what else is he supposed to do? Steadfast and loyal are virtues Carlos is accustomed to in others, in his siblings who tolerated his weirdness or his friends or _Kendall,_ but that’s the point. Kendall is loyal and steadfast. Kendall has always been there when Carlos has needed him.  
  
Holding on hurts when he knows that there is a very good chance he will never live up to James, but Carlos owes Kendall this, someone who _stays_.  
  
(Best friends forever the four of them said when they were eleven and too young to know better. They swore on their pinky fingers, on spit and on blood.)  
  
More than anything else, Carlos owes Kendall the fact that not all promises get broken.  
  


\---

  
**33.**  
  
Carlos is golden-brown, ochre and earth tones.  
  
Kendall can’t stop thinking about him with that girl, the back his thighs against the deerskin hue of their couch, the darker flesh behind his knees and his toes. He wonders if anyone’s ever tongued the rim of Carlos’s asshole, taken him apart wet and filthy with their mouth until Carlos begged to come.  
  
(Carlos has the best voice, more unassuming than James’s, prettier, in a way. He’d beg so nicely, drag his lips wretched across the syllables of Kendall’s name. He can image the exact hoarse notes, his bossy whimpers of _Kendall, more, please_.)  
  
Kendall slips his hand down around his dick without actually thinking about it, the waistband of his pajama bottoms tugging tight across his wrist. He brings himself off in a sleepy haze, each stroke radiating down his legs, up his ribcage, curling his fingers and his toes.  
  
The sticky, cooling mess in Kendall’s lap brings him back to reality, where there’s a knockknockknock on his door and Carlos continues to be completely off-limits.  
  
“I’m not decent,” Kendall yelps, pulling his comforter over his lap.  
  
The retort of, “I’ve seen it before,” is expected.  
  
The person the voice belongs to is not. James barges right in, a year and a half after Kendall’s last seen his face, and he doesn’t even bother to apologize when his weight settles into Kendall’s bed. He says, “We should, uh. Talk. Or something.”  
  
He is different. His hair is shorter. His teeth are whiter. He walks with a strut that is more self-assured. It’s like he’s growing into his own skin.  
  
Kendall clutches his comforter tighter and demands, “What is there to talk about?”  
  
He hoped this would happen, that he’d see James again. He imagined it eighteen different ways.  
  
Funny how none of them were like this.  
  
“Please don’t hate me,” James pleads, sharp and needy, if not entirely unexpected.  
  
Just like that, his wet dream about Carlos is a distant memory. He’s nearly two years younger and so intensely in love that he can feel those words tremble inside of him, entire body a tuning fork on James’s exact frequency.  
  
He is not strong.  
  
Logan is the one who was able to walk away, while Kendall just keeps running himself into the ground over and over again, even knowing that  
it won’t end up the way he wants it to.  
  
“I…” Kendall would like to tell James that he can’t hate him, because of everything they’ve shared.  
  
Because believing in love is supposed to be more important than anything.  
  
Because if he stops, he has nothing left. All the things he has faith in have been stripped away, except this; whenever Kendall was lonely, or whenever he was sad, James was there. He was like one of those fairytale heroes, a white knight, a prince.  
  
And he didn’t even know it.  
  
Voice cracking, Kendall asks the one thing he’s always wanted to know the answer to. “Why wasn’t I good enough?”  
  
He dreads the response almost as much as he needs it.  
  
James treated Kendall like he was the one who had any kind of power in their relationship, and Kendall let him, because he was so scared that if he didn’t, James would leave. The second he ever lets a person know that they’re in control, they book it straight out of town, starting with his dad and ending right now, right here.  
  
He told James he loved him, and James left.  
  
There’s an equation in there somewhere, and it ends with Kendall Knight standing apart and alone, playing make believe that he can handle it.  
  
Caught somewhere between proud and apologetic, James replies, “I wanted more.”  
  
He doesn’t regret it, Kendall can tell. He’s always known every inflection of James’s voice better than his own.  
  
Swallowing down his bile and spit, Kendall says, “Yeah,” as if that’s even an answer. His stomach clenches harder than his jaw.  
  
“Do you forgive me?” James asks, working up a charming smile. He cuts his eyes towards Kendall. They bore into his flesh, drilling past his defenses.  
  
James’s presence is an open wound. He is everything, was everything, is something in between; all of Kendall’s love and hope and dreams wrapped up into a single perfect package of a boy. He’s all Kendall has ever wanted or needed, until now.  
  
But to James? Kendall isn’t any of that. He is just a boy, and maybe, if he had less pride, he would be okay with it.  
  
He isn’t.  
  
He never will be.  
  
Kendall wants more too. He deserves someone who will see him as _more_. And it doesn’t even matter, because he can’t stop wanting James.  
  
Maybe that’s his fault, because he’s never tried wanting anything, any _one_ else, not for real. Kendall’s not even sure he knows how.  
  
That’s fucked.  
  
He’s fucked.  
  
Kendall bunches his fingers into the down of his comforter, ignoring the congealing mess underneath. He says, “Not yet.”  
  
James slumps. He rakes his fingers through his hair, forcing it to stand on end.  
  
He says, “You hurt me too.”  
  
“I thought you realized,” Kendall tells him quietly. “I loved you. Of course I loved you. You were supposed to know that – _me_ – better than anybody.”  
  
James’s laughter is harsh, wrecked. “I barely knew myself.”  
  
Through the thick down of his blanket, Kendall taps his fingers against his own knee. “Be honest. If I’d said something earlier, would it have made a difference?”  
  
He hates himself for asking. It’s not like he wants to be the awful, clingy ex, but if he loosens his hold on his anger and the rage, what’s going to be living beneath it? Kendall used to think that at his core would always be the loyal, sweet little boy who believed in fairytales, but that kid doesn’t exist anymore.  
  
James made sure of it, or maybe Kendall made sure of it, or maybe everyone in California had a hand in it.  
  
No matter what, that kid is gone. All Kendall is now is this flux of hatred and sorrow that simmers so deep in his bones. Maybe that’s all he will ever be.  
  
Besides, his question might be crazy, but it’s genuine. He cared too much about James to tie him down, was too afraid of losing their friendship to mess it all up, but maybe if he’d cared more about himself he would have tried.  
  
Logan did. Logan was braver than Kendall could ever be.  
  
James inhales sharply. He wants to lie. Kendall can tell that much. But he understands little else – about his body language, about his eyes.  
He used to hear James’s voice in every album he owned, but he’s spent so long trying to forget that maybe now the edged nuance when he speaks is more cryptic than it should be. “At first, maybe. In the long run? Probably not.”  
  
At the very least, he understands it’s not a lie. James is taking the high road, because he really has changed. How weird is that? Kendall’s best friend is becoming a stranger.  
  
Kendall still doesn’t know how to let him go.  
  
“That’s what I thought,” Kendall replies, and he means it.  
  
He can’t imagine what it’s like not to be let down.  
  
James hurries to cover, to slap a Band-Aid over the hurt. “You know, you’re brilliant, right? You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”  
  
“I’m not Logan,” Kendall retorts, staring James down.  
  
His expression softens in a way that pierces right at the center of Kendall’s heart, chokes at his lungs and blacks at the edges of his vision. His heartbreak is visceral when James says, “No. You’re not.”  
  
Hearing it out loud isn’t pleasant.  
  
It doesn’t herald the apocalypse, either.  
  
Kendall sits in bed for a long time after James bolts, if only as far as their pull-out couch. His pajamas are still rucked down around his hips, dried cum flaking against his thighs. He’s hiding, probably, but that only works out for as long as it takes Carlos to saunter in and ask, “Are you okay?”  
  
He’s so careful around Kendall, so tentative and un-Carlos-like. Ever since that one night, that one kiss.  
  
Kendall hasn’t forgotten that. He thinks about it more than he should. _Obviously_.  
  
It would be so easy to throw himself into the deep end again, to pretend that healing is as easy as basking in the lust for and love of another person.  
  
 _Pretend_ being the operative word. Love destroys, and Kendall wouldn’t be able to stand it if anything ever destroyed Carlos. That’s why he can’t. That’s why that dream, his thoughts, everything about them are never going to happen.  
  
James coming around only drives that point home.  
  
“Dunno.” Kendall replies, and he really doesn’t.  
  
“I tried to tell him he couldn’t come in,” Carlos explains frantically, watching Kendall with big, brown eyes. “He pushed right past me. He never listens.”  
  
“It’s okay. It’s alright.”  
  
It’s not, but whatever. No way is any of it Carlos’s fault. Kendall instructs him to watch their wayward superstar and skips out, because James’s presence in their tiny apartment makes it hard to do anything but stew.  
  
He walks to the lake and stands at the edge.  
  
He spent a million summers here. Laughing. Smiling. James, Logan, and Carlos at his side as they splashed into the water, racing each other out to the middle.  
  
Kendall would swim so hard, so fast. He always won. But now he wonders if maybe that was his fatal flaw; he left his friends in the dust so many times that the distance between them became impossible to cross.  
  
He tells the empty air, “I love James Diamond,” and the words make him wince, too loud, too true, forever and ever true.  
  
But then he changes tack, tries, “I’m in love with James Diamond,” and those words sound hollow, not right, not completely, not anymore.  
  
There is still a distant ache in his limbs when he says it, still a lining of hope in his heart, but. It’s not as bad as he remembers. He can breathe through it. He almost feels like he could smile.  
  
Kendall will always love James, because first loves are like that; immutable, unforgettable.  
  
But he will not always be in love with James, and for the first time in ages, the idea fills him with a different kind of hope.  
  


\---

  
**34.**  
  
James’s semi-annual, often _unannounced_ ninja visits don’t actually change anything. Carlos never figures out if Kendall has forgiven him, or if he’s secretly plotting to slit James’s throat while he sleeps. The end could come any day now.  
  
That doesn’t stop Carlos from trying to repair his own relationship with James. Because. Well. It’s easier now, not hating his best friend.  
  
Of course, it helps that he knows James is _taken_.  
  
That’s what makes it particularly awful when Kendall waltzes into the bathroom while Carlos is simultaneously trying to conference call James and Logan as well as brush his teeth.  
  
Carlos stares at him in abject horror while James babbles happily over Logan’s smart-people jargon. He jabs his finger into the _end call_ button before Kendall can hear anything incriminating, but his water slick finger slides along the surface of his smart phone, fucking dumb smart phone, and he can’t quite manage to shut them up in time.  
  
“Are they together?” Kendall asks bluntly, his big green eyes making Carlos feel so terribly guilty, especially because this huge part of Kendall probably doesn’t _want_ to know the answer. But the part of him that’s always been sturdy and courageous and accepts that ignorance is not bliss, it’s torture; that’s the part that asks.  
  
Carlos crosses his arms, toothbrush dangling between his fingers, foaming at the mouth. “I don’t know. I think they’re trying to focus on being friends again. If they’re doing anything else, they’re taking it really, really, really slow.”  
  
Kendall waits, because Carlos has to know more than that.  
  
He does.  
  
He shifts from foot to foot, guilty. “They, um. I heard there was a kiss. But since then, Logan’s been making James grovel. Does that make you feel better?”  
  
“No.” Kendall grips the edge of the sink and exhales slow. The set of his shoulders is rigid, the pallor of his face is pale. And Carlos feels stupid, because yeah, how could that possibly make him feel better?  
  
James would never grovel for Kendall. It’s one more disparity in a long list of them that lead to the end.  
  
Only Kendall surprises Carlos by saying, “But. I want Logan to be happy. And James. I guess. Probably. So. Good for them.”  
  
Happy is the last thing the beast that still rages inside him obviously wants for James, but somewhere underneath the storm is the Kendall Carlos knows, the boy who loved James Diamond more than he ever thought possible. The loyal kid Carlos that thought he’d lost.  
  
Carlos can see _that_ boy wanting James to be radiant with happiness, to outshine the stars with it. So, Kendall’s trying again. That’s a victory, in a way.  
  
He claps Kendall’s shoulder and says, “I don’t get you sometimes, man.” Then he pauses. “Want to go break shit?”  
  
“Absolutely,” Kendall’s fingers twitch, his mouth curving, cheeks dimpling.  
  
One day, maybe Carlos will stop thinking he is beautiful.  
  


\---

  
**35.**  
  
Kendall picks up the phone. He spends a fair amount of time glaring at the receiver.  
  
Placing blame on inanimate objects is way easier than what he thinks he needs to do.  
  
The missed call symbol stares accusingly up at him from the corner of his cell’s screen.  
  
Finally.  
  
This is ridiculous. It’s just a phone call. A phone call he’s been waiting for, even.  
  
Kendall mumbles words like _courage_ and _honor_ and _duty_ in his head, and does not cringe away when they call up memories of camouflage.  
He has never forgiven his dad, and maybe he never will, but that doesn’t mean Kendall resents the things his father stood for.  
  
No matter how many horrible things a person has done, it does not negate the good they’ve put out into the world. It doesn’t erase all the times he twirled Kendall in the air when he was a kid, the world spinning into a blur, the both of them caught in a vortex of wind and laughter.  
  
That memory, more than any confirmation word is what spurs Kendall into pressing _call_.  
  
Remember the good parts, or let the bad parts consume you; it’s rule nine hundred and eighty three in learning how to live again.  
  
He waits through three rings.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
His heart forgets it is not made of lead, but Kendall breathes through each stutter and stop.  
  
He says, “Hey, Logan.”

  
\---

**36.**  
  
How Carlos and Kendall feel about James has defined them both for so long. So basically, Carlos likes this brave new world, where they are both able to redefine themselves.  
  
He invites Kendall to his friend’s engagement party because he invites Kendall to every event he ever goes to. Kendall accepts less than half the time, because Kendall actually has a pretty busy life for a guy who has spent the past two and a half years for all intents and purposes, miserable.  
  
He agrees to come out this time, though, because it’s a Saturday night and, “I’ve got nothing better to do than witness the beginning of what will one day be a spectacular trainwreck.”  
  
“Dude, you’re so damaged.” Carlos tugs at his starched white shirt. He hates dressing up. For some reason he thought being an adult would involve more leather jackets, but apparently that’s only true if you’re James Diamond.  
  
Kendall looks equally uncomfortable in his own get-up. “Are you sure you don’t want to do something else? We could go out, cause mischief, get matching tattoos.”  
  
“The last time I took you into a tattoo parlor, you tried to get a Carebear.” Carlos places a hand at Kendall’s back instinctively, guiding him towards the door. “Come on, you can get drunk and toast the happy couple about the inevitability of heartbreak.”  
  
“Why are they even getting married?” Kendall begins plaintively, and Carlos is so very sick of this speech.  
  
“Love’s real, Kendall. Just because it fucked you over once doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” He’s digging his fingers into Kendall’s spine harder than necessary, pulling him into shared airspace, his cologne heady on Carlos’s tongue. Low and rough, he vows, “Love exists.”  
  
Kendall visibly swallows, his Adam’s Apple bobbing uncertainly. “Yeah. I was actually going to say they’re kind of young.”  
  
“Right. Of course.” Carlos falters, taking a step back. “I didn’t mean-“  
  
Kendall grabs for his shoulders and ropes him into a hug.  
  
“I know what you meant.” Against Carlos’s collarbone he keeps going, the words half muffled, Carlos’s heart too tight. “And I keep wanting to tell you – thanks.”  
  
“For what?” Carlos asks, astonished. He breathes hot against Kendall’s ear and wonders mostly if it would be wrong to cop a feel, weirdly touched by absolutely everything about this.  
  
Touched and a little turned on. He’s not sure which is sicker.  
  
Kendall tells him, “For not giving up.”  
  
“No pro-“  
  
“You’re right, you know,” Kendall interrupts levelly. “Love _is_ real.”  
  
His words are rocks tied to Carlos’s feet, but his eyes are blazing, a lighthouse for Carlos to swim towards. Standing by Kendall’s side all this time was never about getting him to see Carlos in a new light. Not at all, but.  
  
He hopes.  
  
He wants.  
  
He prays.  
  


\---

**37.**  
  
Carlos jams out to pop demo tracks that James sends in the mail. He wiggles his hips and shimmies his chest, slick from the shower, browned from the sun.  
  
Countless years of choreography and he still throws down like a dork.  
  
Kendall folds his arms across his sternum, caging his heightened awareness of his heart before anyone else notices its thudthudthud.  
  
Carlos drops down to the floor, kicks out his legs and takes out their coffee table, all in one smooth move. A snort of laughter bursts from Kendall’s lips of its own volition.  
  
Head snapping up, Carlos says sheepishly, “I think I’m out of practice.”  
  
“I dunno why. It’s easy.” Kendall’s muscles are stiff and achy from a hard day of stocking bookshelves and getting his ass handed to him by his teammates. But he can still do this, execute the same move with perfect grace.  
  
“Showoff,” Carlos bites out, sweat pricking against his temple.  
  
Kendall considers licking it away, imagines the taste of it on his tongue.  
  
He chases the thought off with tired recognition.  
  
“Always have been,” he agrees instead, and it’s true. Kendall keeps waiting for the day he’ll outgrow his fifteen year old self, but it never comes. He’s still a little prick.  
  
Older now, wiser, sure. But still the same kid who likes hockey and hates schoolwork and loves his friends so much it hurts. He still wants to be the best, still relies on zany schemes to get him through the day, and he’s still holding onto this image of a boy, of James, like it’s the only thing that keeps him standing.  
  
Only the image has gone fuzzy around the edges, replaced with something softer, someone kinder. Somewhere along the line, Kendall has found himself thinking about Carlos the way he used to.  
  
Not that it means anything for them.  
  
It’s completely possible to love other people and despise yourself, but Kendall thinks that unless he gets to an okay place again, he won’t ever be able to love Carlos the way he deserves. James needs to stop plaguing him completely, a constant presence in his brain. He needs to stop wincing every time Logan calls.  
  
And even then, he needs to work past this idea, this thing he can’t let go – that love exists to rip people to shreds.  
  
Besides, he knows better than anybody else that liking your best friend doesn’t actually mean your best friend likes you back. _It’s gross_ never stops ringing around the back of his brain, even if Carlos would never say that now.  
  
“Cocky bitch,” Carlos spits at him without any vitriol, and then he tackles Kendall into the couch, because he can.  
  
And that’s. Erm. Probably a bad idea on his part.  
  
See, Kendall’s really big on this suffering silently thing, this strong, stoic martyr routine he’s got going, but that doesn’t mean he’s like, inhuman. Carlos wiggles his hips, getting his fingers up in between Kendall’s ribs, tickling him ruthlessly. Kendall’s laughing so hard that it’s painful, squirming underneath his best friend, who is brilliant, sun-brown, sweaty but sweet smelling, and he doesn’t expect the way his body reacts, he doesn’t, he’s not fucking fifteen anymore. But something about the heat and the bubble of happiness filling his chest and the pressure of Carlos all up over him is enough that his dick takes an interest, and Carlos isn’t dumb. Not the most observant, a lot of the time, but not dumb.  
  
He notices when Kendall stops laughing.  
  
“Hey, did I hurt you?” He settles back on his heels, dark eyes searching, “Are you oka- uh, what’s that?”  
  
Pajama pants aren’t great for hiding like, anything, and Kendall’s so hot under his skin he feels like he’s gone nuclear. When he swallows, it’s dry and loud. “It’s a while since I’ve-“ He makes a motion with his hand that’s supposed to be explanatory but mostly looks careless.  
  
Fuck. He’s perving on his best bud and he can’t even give him a half decent explanation for it.  
  
He expects the look of total surprise that breaks across Carlos’s features. That’s pretty much a natural response to your best dude friend popping wood, arguably because of you. What isn’t so much is the way that Carlos licks his lips, says, “That’s. That’s –“ and then kisses him.  
  
Kendall arches up into it immediately, the heat of Carlos’s lips the only thing he wants to feel like, forever, the play of his skin underneath Kendall’s fingertips basically better than anything he expected. He takes what he can and waits for Carlos to push him away, but instead Carlos pulls him closer, slotting their bodies together, licking out into Kendall’s mouth.  
  
They fit together in a way that Kendall had always known they would, maybe, hearts racing in tandem, their hands wandering freely.  
  
Carlos’s knees bracket Kendall’s hips, the both of them sinking into the cushy brown of their sofa cushions. He moans helplessly against lips so plush and red that all he wants is to feel them wrapped around his dick, to feel those fingertips branding Kendall’s hipbones right on his cock.  
  
Carlos nudges a thigh between Kendall’s legs, shivering friction up the length of him, and oh, _fuck_.  
  
Kendall presses against him, the heat and the weight of Carlos’s cock insistent and _there_ , and Carlos whimpers, rough and pleading. The few people he’s screwed around with since James – they were nothing like this.  
  
His blood did not call to them, but it thunders Carlos’s name.  
  
Carlos says, “I want you,” and shoves his hand straight down Kendall’s pants, Kendall’s head so clouded with agreement that it’s all he can do to pant _yes_ , to groan Carlos’s name.  
  
And then Carlos shakes his head, pulls his hand back so quickly it’s like he’s been burned.  
  
He says, “No. This is wrong. I can’t-“  
  
“What? But you just-“  
  
“Not like this.” Carlos’s face is twisted, angry and a little annoyed. “You don’t get to use me to forget about James.”  
  
James is literally the last thing on Kendall’s mind, but shame burns his cheeks all the same. “I didn’t mean to-“  
  
“I know you didn’t.” Carlos scampers off his lap, onto solid ground. He crosses his arms defensively against his naked chest and says,  
“Kendall, you don’t know how to handle being alone. You never have. I think maybe it’s time you figured it out.”  
  
And it’s funny, because it’s Carlos, who has always had a mom or a dad or a sister or a brother or a friend at his side. He’s got endless amounts of friends. What does Carlos even know about being alone?  
  
But when Kendall meets his gaze, he thinks maybe Carlos knows a lot more about loneliness than he’s ever let on.  
  
“One day-“ His voice breaks, like he’s saying something that he never meant to give voice to, this deep dark secret. Since when has Carlos had those? He juts out his chin and barrels on, more steady now, “One day, you’re going to want me more than you ever wanted James. And until then…” Carlos shrugs. “I can wait.”  
  
Kendall watches Carlos’s heaving chest, aching a little, but also bizarrely delighted. “Wait. Do you like me?”  
  
Rolling his eyes, Carlos replies, “You’re lucky you’ve got a good slapshot, because you’re real slow at everything else.  
  
Despite himself, Kendall grins. Because that’s – an interesting development. Yeah. He can definitely work with that.  
  
Carlos retreats to his bedroom in a rush, a flush riding high on his cheeks now that his declaration is out there, real and ringing. Watching his retreating back, Kendall thinks that love involves a lot of patience and waiting.  
  
But it’s okay.  
  
If Carlos is willing to wait, then maybe Kendall should be too, because this time, this thing, whatever it can be…  
  
It’s something worth waiting for.

  
\---

**Coda.**

  
It takes years, because pain and love are not the kind of things a person can recover from in an instant, or a day, or a handful of months. But it happens eventually; every day, it gets the teensiest bit easier. Carlos makes Kendall smile like no other, when James only knew how to make him sad.  
  
In a way, that’s tragic, that Kendall ever valued one feeling over another, but he is not a nineteen year old boy any longer.  
  
It’s June, or maybe it’s October, May or December. All Kendall knows is that he turns around and sees Carlos, laughing at something with his brilliant, ridiculous grin. He remembers how much he used to love this boy, back before love made him a needy, desperate thing.  
  
More than that smile alone, it takes Kendall knowing that he’s sure, that he’s not using Carlos because he’s lonely or hard up. It takes endless movie nights and bar karaoke and Carlos cheering him on at so many hockey games that Kendall loses count. It takes trips to Carlos’s marketing firm and afternoon lunches in familiar cafes, and being reminded of all the things that used to belong to the two of them before James came along and ruined it all.  
  
Still, Kendall waits, because he does not want Carlos to think he’s second best. Carlos has never been second at anything in Kendall’s eyes, but how can he tell him that? He has spent years talking his ear off about one thing, one person only.  
  
Now everything is different.   
  
Kendall knows more now. He’s stronger. But he’s still Kendall. And he’s beginning to think that’s never going to change.  
  
He’s also beginning to think he’s okay with that.  
  
What he feels for Carlos never becomes the thing that he felt for James, the intense heat and focus and need that overwhelmed him. But it does turn into something equal in measure, a kinder desire that consumes him all the same.  
  
And one day, far in the future, Kendall even lets Carlos know.  
  
This is how it happens:  
  
The trees towering above them are huge. The wind shakes them, rakes the leaves from their branches. They spiral down, a slow snowstorm that Kendall watches, watches, for minutes on end. He loves when spring finally hits in Minnesota, with its fresh paint and bouquets of dogwood blooming overhead. It’s the creak of old houses, the sun growing too hot, and the memory of _him_ , beating vibrant in his veins, turning the muscles between his shoulders taut. Years later and James does still exist in the primavera stars and sunwarm concrete. He is the wooden support beams in pubs Kendall never visits, the laughter of the carefree college students he never completely got to be, the golden hue of microbrews and the specter of a kiss he can no longer taste. Kendall misses James when he shouldn’t; this place screams of the lives they could have lived.  
  
But here, now, it is also the future. James might be prevalent, but Carlos is everywhere.  
  
He’s the arm around Kendall’s shoulders, piloting the remote control on Netflix nights. He’s the funky smell in the kitchen, because he tried cooking, _again_. He’s the musical dictator in the car they both share, the chooser of hole in the wall restaurants rich with the scent of dirt. He’s the glarer of pretty girls who deign to flirt with the former leader of Big Time Rush, the one who comes running when Kendall’s dad calls. He’s the scent of the wildflowers he just trampled over like a raging bull, the sheen of sunlight that soaks both of their skin. He’s leaning into Kendall right now, his mouth open and wide and unsuspecting.  
  
“Beat you,” Carlos crows, their race to the lakeside fast and ruthless, and he’s panting a bit.  
  
Kendall shrugs off the heinous accusation that he could ever lose at anything, and thinks. He thinks, and thinks, and then he leans in.  
  
They’ve both waited long enough.

\---


End file.
